Wild Tales
by Nemo Nemini
Summary: With the help of a magic legend Clemson manages to conquer Madagascar and make himself king of the lemurs after all. Julien has to fight for his throne, his life, and the survival of his people. For that he needs to rely on help from old friends... The penguins are to the rescue. Sequel to Wild Dances/Wild Energy and last part.
1. Prologue - Downfall

_***All copyrights belong to their respective owners. Warning: This story contains witchcraft, violence (some), deaths (many!), moves from the heights of bliss to the depths of despair and generally covers all shades of weirdness. Feel free to read if you're ready.***_

* * *

PROLOGUE

 **DOWNFALL**

 _For a moment Julien thought that he was going to make it._

 _But he hadn't run fast enough. He hadn't jumped as high as Maurice. He couldn't reach the plane's wing, like the aye-aye had done. Instead he crashed into the hull, cracking his ribs against it. He almost bounced off, but he slapped his arms in all directions, desperately trying to grab hold of something. He couldn't breathe properly; his ribs were on fire. His right paw hit the landing gear that was still extracted but slipped off again when he tried to grab hold of it. His feet scrambled on the plane's left front wheel with frantic kicks as he tried to climb onto it, but he couldn't get hold of anything. Fear froze him; he was too scared to even cry. He felt himself slipping backwards, feet paddling in thin air._

 _"Julien!"_

 _Maurice threw his upper body over the edge of the cockpit, flinging his paws out in front of him, reaching down for Julien. Their fingers locked, and for a moment Julien stopped falling, but then he realized that Maurice was sliding down towards him; the aye-aye was twisting his feet back and forth as he tried to stop himself from doing so. Julien dropped a bit further, still clinging onto the older lemur's paws – they dangled in mid-air together, time standing still._

 _From the cockpit Skipper yelled something back to them, but his voice was torn away by the whine of the wind. The plane lurched to the side, now making an angle of forty-five degrees with the horizon – Skipper was trying to give some counterweight to the gravity that pulled Maurice down mercilessly._

 _Julien wanted to beg Maurice not to let go, to plead with him to pull him up, but his voice was lost somewhere deep inside him, smothered by a blanket of terror._

 _With the horizon line slanted uphill in front of him and a fifty-miles-an-hour wind blowing in his face Julien glanced back down at the castle._

 _Out of the corner of his eye, a movement caught his attention –_

 _Terror froze him when he saw who had appeared._

 _Down below, standing on the platform of the tower in almost the very spot where Julien and Maurice had been standing only moments before, someone peered up at the plane passing overhead..._

 _Even from up here Julien could clearly see the malicious intent emblazoned across the red lemur's face. Clemson's bloodshot eyes bulged in their sockets as he pulled his lips back in a snarling grimace._

 _Now he would see to it that they died for sure –!_

 _Maurice saw him, too; he gripped his king's paw so tight that his fingers were digging into Julien's skin, his face contorted by the effort, but Julien could see in his eyes that he couldn't hold on much longer. He was pulling and struggling, twisting around with his legs as he kept on trying to pull him up, but it wasn't working. Tears welled in the older lemur's eyes. They stared at each other, neither having the strength or breath to utter a word. Julien slipped further down, inch by inch. He gazed at Maurice with pleading eyes. Maurice gazed straight back with silent tears running down his cheeks._

 _Grinning with anticipation Clemson pointed his gun upwards to the sky, tracking their plane._

 _Then he pulled the trigger._

 _He had taken a pretty good shot: the landing gear was ripped right off. With a loud bang it fell out of its well – taking Julien right with it. He didn't even have a chance to react._

 _Their united cry echoed through the air when their paws slipped apart, and the force of the separation sent Julien spinning. He felt himself falling down, down, down. The air rushed past his ears like a hurricane. Desperately he looked about, trying to control his fall, but Maurice had disappeared from his view. As he tumbled through the air, trying to catch sight of the plane, his eyes fixed on the ground rushing up towards him. He had barely seconds before he hit._

 _All other thoughts left his mind, and he closed his eyes –_

 _Something crashed into his chest with such force, two of his ribs snapped like dry twigs. He wanted to cry out with the pain, but no sound could escape his throat. He lay still for a moment, breathless and shaking with terror, not immediately realizing what had happened._

 _I'm alive, was the first thing that flashed into his mind when his thoughts came clear. He furiously blinked his eyes open and scrambled to his feet; his fur was scraped off in many places, his skin littered with scratches and bruises, and there was not a spot on his body that didn't ache – but he had survived the fall._

 _He found he had landed right in the castle's moat. About seventy feet wide and thirty feet deep as it was, there was no way of getting out easily. Also some parts of the castle walls had crumbled down after the penguins' attack, blocking it completely in one direction: there was no way to ever get through that pile of rocks in front of him. Sweat was pouring from his ashen face as he concentrated hard to keep his body from shaking while he gazed around in search of another way of escape._

 _Suddenly a shadow fell over him from behind – when he turned around, he saw a lemur's familiar silhouette framed by the steep walls of the moat rising around them._

 _Julien's heart began to hammer. Place and time faded when he realized he was cornered in a dead end – with a pile of rocks in his back and Clemson coming up directly in front of him._

 _'Oh, Frank'. The thought was half exclamation, half prayer._

 _Clemson was approaching him, slowly, almost casually. With the sun off to the side, he cast a long shadow which divided with every step he took towards his arch enemy._

 _Julien stood shock-still, dazed. He was out of options; he could only brace himself for what was to come. Frantically he darted his eyes around again in one last attempt to find another way out, but there was none. He tried to step backward but soon found himself pressed against the rocks behind him. The stone felt clammy against his fur._

 _There was no escape._

 _Gravely, step by step, Clemson came nearer – with his gun in his paw, waist-high and leveled on Julien._

* * *

 **A/N:** _I was aiming to publish this in winter and now it's almost spring. I'm so sorry! Thank you so much for coming back and reading again. I'm convinced that without your lovely support I wouldn't have had the stamina to prepare another story of this size. I certainly hope you'll enjoy this final part. :)_


	2. Chapter 1 - Desert Heat

CHAPTER 1

 **DESERT HEAT**

* * *

 **MOROCCO, PAST**

It was the hottest time of the day when the penguins arrived in the Rabat National Zoo.

The fiery midday sun sent a shimmering heat haze over the burning desert. They'd turned the air conditioning on full blast, and it panted with exertion, yet it was so hot inside the helicopter they could hardly breathe.

The fact that they were also still very exhausted from their previous adventure didn't make things any better; and on top of that, after they'd taken the lemurs home, they'd traveled all the way back from Madagascar to Morocco with barely a pause. All four of them hoped they'd manage to accomplish this next mission as soon as possible so they could finally head home for New York.

When they landed inside the zoo they found the habitats empty; a noisy, panicking crowd of animals had gathered on the visitor paths. Since it was Sunday there weren't any humans around to help the poor zoo inhabitants, who were left in the blistering heat without a drop of water.

"The high-tension line near the zoo got damaged – and now both power and water supply to all our habitats have broken down!" an extraordinarily large camel, who appeared to be the leader of this zoo, frantically reported to the arriving penguins.

"Did any of you see how that happened?" Skipper asked, and a couple of zoo residents nodded eagerly and told him how they had watched two lemurs knock down one of the high-voltage power line poles for some reason. Skipper heaved a deep sigh: the lemurs' description exactly matched that of Clemson and Mea.

"Alright, let's help those poor unfortunate souls and then track those guys down further," he decided, "– Kowalski, options."

Typing away on his smartphone with sweaty flippers, his second-in-command was already carrying out measurements of the broken high-tension wire.

"If everyone pulls their weight, we should have this ready in about two hours."

Three hours later Kowalski began wondering if he had miscalculated, and five hours later they were finally done, everyone bathed in sweat from the heat and exhausted to the bone from the hours they'd spent in the burning sun trying to re-erect the pole.

However, in the late afternoon the pools in all habitats were refilled to the brim with sparkling water, and the fountains on the visitor paths were bubbling again. The National Zoo residents gratefully invited the penguins to stay, but Skipper declined with thanks and just asked if they'd seen in what direction the two lemurs had headed off. The camel pointed straight down the road flanked by palm trees which, at the western end of the town, extended out into the desert.

The back of their helicopter stuffed with small presents and Moroccan goodies, the penguins set off in pursuit, heading out the described way, overseeing everything for miles around from above. Some hours and a couple hundred miles later the road passing under them just petered out into the nothingness of the desert. Next to the last street sign they spotted a solitary store by the wayside and decided to land and ask for the two criminals again.

They found the owner of the store, a screwhorn antelope, resting on the sidewalk in front of the building, sulkily smoking a cigarette. When the penguins asked him the reason for his concern, he told them he'd been robbed for the seventh time in eleven months, and that this was a record even for him. He described the burglars as 'two red lemurs on a motorbike'.

"So what's been stolen from you?" Skipper asked when they sat together in the store's slightly cooler interior; the penguins were vigorously fanning themselves with large palm leaves while the store owner, a consummate desert animal, felt no discomfort from the heat.

"Mostly fruit and batteries, and a couple of other things," he answered in a heavy Moroccan accent, "A one gallon canister of gasoline, two bottles of engine oil, an old book, some water, a camcorder, my cash register, and some bags of cheesy dibbles."

"Did you see where they were headed?"

The owner squinted into the distance, where heat devils danced far and wide over sandy levels. "Right that way… straight on into the Sahara."

They gazed across the wide, open space.

"Well, what could they possibly want there? Do you think they'll plan another robbery?"

The owner took another puff from his cigarette. "No, I don't think so. Because who would they want to mug? There's nobody outside there, not a soul! I don't know why anyone would want to go that way at all. The next town is more than two hundred miles away from here… Other than that there's nothing in that direction, nothing but sand and heat."

The penguins sat slumped in their basket chairs, huddling in front of the only table fan in the store. It didn't cool the air much, but it moved what was there. Overheated as they were, it was hard for them to follow the conversation; Kowalski continually blotted dots of perspiration from his brow, and Rico was emptying the last bottle of mineral water the poor antelope had left in his store.

"Are we going after them, Skipper?" Private asked, fanning himself with his flipper.

"You might want to reconsider if you really want to do this," said the antelope, "Your chances of finding them out there are next to none. By now the wind will already have covered all their traces, blown away the tire tracks of their bike."

Skipper nodded thoughtfully. "I don't exactly see how you could build a weapon of mass destruction with the things they've stolen… They're probably just trying to survive."

"Maybe that's everything Clemson wants after all. Maybe he's just given up his little power play," Kowalski agreed, and Rico nodded, too. "I mean, he didn't even try to take over the zoo back in Rabat, did he? And he sure can't do much evil where he's now. Maybe we could just hope we're lucky and never have to see him again."

The leader pondered this for a while.

Private looked like he was ready to faint from the heat. "Maybe we could just go home for now, Skipper," he suggested, and eventually they all agreed to this.

* * *

A couple of months later, two red lemurs were still leading a peaceful life in the desert.

To a zoo animal like Clemson who had been born and raised in captivity all along a life like this was a dream come true, although the abandoned landscape didn't offer much in the way of luxury. Simplicity was a part of daily life here; they had their motorbike, a cave into which they had moved a while ago, and each other.

Clemson sometimes thought about whether he actually needed more than that. They were able to live in freedom, a life not bound by fear, shame, hatred, and old wounds; the quietness and uniformity of their surroundings helped him cleanse himself of everything that had happened before, of all the disturbing memories of Hoboken. However, this quietness could also be very pervasive from time to time; for one thing it was filled with the deepest peace, but for another it stirred feelings of uneasiness in him and brought back memories of his past faults and failings. And then he would wish he wasn't trapped here in the desert with these feelings, with nothing to erase them; his old hunger of revenge flared up in him again, his life-long hatred of Julien, and he wanted to show the animals out there that if only he wanted, he could become the greatest lemur of all times.

A feeling like this overcame him once when he browsed through the contents of a box filled with items they'd stolen in the past months. He hadn't even realized yet that among gasoline canisters and batteries they had also taken along a book during one of their raids. Clemson estimated it to be about four inches thick and quite old. The cover was made of red leather with a gold equilateral triangle engraved into it. It also had a flat, round crystal inserted above the triangle; there was a strange form under its transparent surface, which Clemson believed to be some kind of vortex at first sight. When he looked more carefully at it, he recognized it to be a five-pointed star within a circle… a pentacle.

He carefully opened the book; the pages inside were written in what he deciphered to be old Malagasy. Some of them were adorned with parts of baobab leaves – the same leaves attached to Julien's crown… For a moment Clemson wanted to throw the book away and bury it under a sand hill, but then he changed his mind. After all, Madagascar was supposed to be _his_ kingdom; he had to know at least just as much about it as his arch foe.

He left the cave to look for Mea. Some hundred miles to his west the setting sun, now a blazing blood orange, squashed itself down atop a flat horizon. He found the android out on the dunes; Mea had exchanged his roller skates for a sandboard, installed the camcorder they'd stolen at the bottom of a dune, and was now busy filming himself as he gracefully scooted down the steep sand hills.

"Hey, Mea, come here for a second, will you," Clemson called over to him. The android's response was a magnificent stunt on the sandboard.

"Check this out, Clem: a double back somersault with four twists!"

"Fantastic. Now stop that shit and get your butt over here."

After a nice landing Mea took the board off his feet and put his skates back on instead. At last, with the board tucked under his arm and brushing sand out of his hair, he dragged himself over to the other lemur. "What's the matter?"

Clemson showed him the book. "Here, take a look at that. It's written in old Malagasy; you've got to help me translate it."

Mea examined it with a curious look, red eyes scanning the yellowed, ink-blotted pages of spidery handwriting.

"Okay. That may take a while though; I'm barely able to decipher that scrawl."

Indeed the process of scanning the pages and running the text through his translation program took him the rest of the evening. As night fell the temperature dropped rapidly, so Clemson used the time to prepare a campfire meanwhile. He shaved thin slices of wood off a dry log, piled them on a heap of coals, and blew on them. Soon, flickers of warming flame rewarded his efforts.

"So, what about that book?" he asked the android when a little later they sat side by side next to the fire under a wonderfully clear star-filled sky.

"I guess you can tell me everything important there is to know about Madagascar now – like, where's the best place to build a secret lair, or how to cut off the main food supply in order to make everybody surrender?"

"Well… not really, sorry. You know, this isn't a factual book actually; this is rather about Madagascar's mythology… a grimoire of some kind."

"A what?"

"A book containing 'basic knowledge of magic'." – The android drew quotation marks in the air with his fingers. – "Pretty useless, if you ask me… Anyway, about three quarters of it contain all sorts of magical spells. Only the last chapter tells the story of a witch that has been banished from this world after her powers became too vast… or something like that."

"I see." It was clear to Clemson that the android wasn't taking this whole thing too seriously, and perhaps he was right about that, but something about that book had sparked his interest. "Tell me more about it."

"Well, here in the preamble it says, ' _First, you must know that the realm of animalhood is made of three worlds: the first one is the one you see around you, the world of the living, which we call the Light World. The second one is the one where your soul passes on to after your death; this one we call the Shadow World. The third world is a world in between the two others, the world where those reside who are neither dead nor alive; the world of ghosts. It is the Intermediate World.'"_

Clemson thought about this for a while. "That makes sense, don't you think?"

Mea shrugged. "Well, theoretically, maybe. – So after that preamble there's nothing but verses to read on and on through chapter after chapter, magical spells, rituals, blessings, curses or whatever. Only this last chapter here is written in the form of a short prosaic text and entitled 'The Tale of the Golden Lemur'. – Do you want to hear about that?" he asked, sounding as if he hoped that this wasn't the case, but Clemson nodded yes.

"Alright…" The android ran his fingers along the edge of the pages, flipping through them before opening the last chapter. They moved a little closer to the fire to get some better light.

"' _They say there are ghosts haunting this island,'"_ Mea read, " _'And when we speak of ghosts here on Madagascar, we usually associate them with a myriad of strange occurrences enveloping a certain building – the old castle in the very north of the island, an obscure place of which not much is known to the lemur people. Near it one will often hear disembodied voices from somewhere behind the dark walls, phantom footsteps that echo where no one walked, distant sounds of screaming…_

 _I am one of the few animals on this island who happens to know these ghosts._

 _One of them calls herself Seven – Seven the Golden Lemur.'"_

For some reason the writing of the name was shaky, the black ink mingled and smudged, as if tears had splashed onto the yellowed paper.

 _"'Oh, Seven! In life you were my most gifted apprentice – you've gained powers any other of my witch students could have only dreamed of! But when bestowing these powers upon you I also told you that you had the responsibility not to abuse them, and you never accepted this. You left me no choice! I was forced to curse you – to banish you from this world into the world in between – you will remain trapped in this castle, in the Intermediate World, until you've learned to deal with what you've been given.'"_

When they turned the next page around a loose sheet fluttered out, seesawing to the ground: a hand-drawn map with pen-and-ink sketches of Madagascar. One of the locations on the outskirts of the island was marked by pinkish-red paint.

"This must be the castle the witch was sealed in," Mea analyzed. Clemson nodded.

"And what about this scribbling over here?" – He pointed at the back of the sheet, where another pentacle was painted in fine red strokes… it was identical to the one inside the crystal attached to the book cover.

"Those aren't scribbles. It says here that this sign is the First Pentacle of the Moon."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well, the part written around the circumference says it symbolizes escaping from restraints and has the powers to open closed doors. Here on that next page it says, "' _In this grimoire I will write down the pentacle to lift the curse, but you will not be able to lift it on your own; someone from the Light World has to free you. By the time you've learned who and what you are, I shall come back to you and redeem you from the curse._

 _However, for the safety of the lemur people I must send this grimoire away from the island – I know that you've been trying to play tricks on them before! Some of them told me that when they'd lost their way and ended up near the castle, they had heard your voice – you asked them to steal the book from me and free you and promised to grant them your powers in return!_

 _But they are not like you – the lemurs on this island are pure-hearted and free from evil intentions, they aren't interested in power, and your sweet words can't conceal to them what a vicious lemur you really are, what a terrifying being you've turned into – so terrifying that even in the Intermediate World you will be feared from heavens to hell as one of the cruelest witches who have ever lived!'_ "

That last sentence made Clemson grin. "Sounds like a challenge to me," he said.

Mea flipped the grimoire closed. "What do you mean?"

"Well, you know Julien and Maurice – I bet their people are all like them. If they weren't such pathetic, peace-loving fools, one of them would've set that witch free already a long time ago and made himself king of the island with the help of her powers! – Oh, but how lucky we are that they are all such decent and naïve citizens…" He looked up at the android, eyes gleaming with an almost luminous rapaciousness. Suddenly, he knew just what to do, the solution being so apparent he could hardly believe it.

"– Let's go find her, Mea. Let's go look for that witch and bring her back into this world! – And in return for her freedom she will provide me with the army I've needed all along to conquer Madagascar! She will summon demons and other creatures of the underworld to fight for me, and then I shall lead my whole army out in combat against Julien and his people and engage them into a battle they can't win!" – He clenched his fists in malicious anticipation. – "Thanks to the supernatural my victory will be absolutely certain… Oh, this time it shall finally happen! With the help of magic I shall so darken their days with bloodshed and murder that they won't last long unless they surrender to me!"

Mea looked at him as if he'd lost his mind. "You've got to be kidding," he said slowly, leaning back against the tree they'd made their campfire under.

Clemson sat back, too, and let his lips tilt with a mocking curl.

"Let me guess: you don't believe in magic."

"Eh… not really. Why do you? Come on, you're a scientist! You ought to know that witchcraft is just a myth… an old superstition. And what we've just read is nothing but an old tale nobody could ever truly believe."

But Clemson just shook his head. "You know what, you totally don't count because you're the only lemur in the world who doesn't even believe in the Sky Spirits, and it's clear as day that they exist."

"Oh, is it?" Mea opened his package of cigarettes and offered his maker one. "Maybe it's not that easy for you to see because you're not an android, but for me one thing's pretty clear: that which I cannot calculate, does not exist."

Cigarette in paw, Clemson curled his tail around Mea's waist and leaned back against his chest, listening to the soft humming of his processor. "Can you calculate feelings?"

"Oh, shut up." Mea pulled him tight against his side and draped his arm around him, brushing the tip of Clemson's ear with his lips. "Do you really want to go to Madagascar?" he asked after they'd been smoking in silence for a while.

"Sure." Clemson withdrew a bit from their embrace and looked up at him. "Don't you?"

Mea shrugged. "I don't know. I kind of like it here."

There was no doubt that he did; if Clemson didn't ask anything from him, the android would just sleep in the shade of a palm tree or play the red guitar he'd stolen lately or persuade Clemson to go for wild, endless motorbike rides all day.

"– We're some sort of rulers here, too, aren't we… you could say we're ruling the Sahara, couldn't you. There's no one here to bother us or boss us around or even want anything from us. But if you feel you need Madagascar, too…"

Clemson thought about this for a while; he was looking at Mea as he did so, watching the android's red curls flow in the breeze, silken and glistening in the firelight, and thought that in this moment he looked so peaceful and relaxed one wouldn't believe he'd been actually built for combat. And for a moment Clemson wondered if this couldn't be enough, if they couldn't just stay here and forget about everything that had been, forget about Madagascar, about the crown…

But then his hatred prevailed with him, and suddenly he could only think about how, with the help of a witch's powers, it would feel to finally slay Julien with a deep passion.

"I do." He frowned a bit. "And you're with me, right?"

"Why, sure. Whatever you say." The android threw his dwindling cigarette into the fireplace. "How can you even ask… I'm fine with anything, as long as it means we can be together and don't have to obey anyone." He shifted to take Clemson more fully in his arms, and a soft sound came from Clemson's throat as Mea's mouth took his in a fervent kiss.

Just then a cool breeze swept in, putting the fire out completely.

"Frank damn it," Clemson muttered, "Wait, I'll take care of it."

He got up to get the blowtorch from the motorcycle's small rear trunk in order to rekindle it, taking the grimoire along to store it in the same place. Just as he opened the trunk, his gaze fell to the leathery cover of the grimoire again – and suddenly it seemed to him as if the shape inside the crystal wasn't a five-pointed star anymore…

Clemson stared at it, green eyes widened, as the pentacle's lines paled and twisted, their shapes shifting into a new form.

Beneath the surface of the flat, round crystal there was now a brilliant, unblinking eye, red like a crimson coal, staring back at him.

He dropped the grimoire as if it burned him and scooted back behind the motorbike with a scream. Mea was by his side in a flash, his gun in his paw, security catch off. "Now what?!"

"That book…!" It lay spine open in the sand, pages fluttering in the breeze.

Mea reached down for it and picked it up before Clemson could tell him to be careful. After leafing through it briefly, the android shrugged. "What about it?"

Clemson slowly came around the motorbike, keeping his wide-eyed gaze locked on it.

If it moved…

But it didn't. When he looked at the cover now, the weird metamorphosis was gone as if it'd never happened; the lines of the pentacle had phased back to their original position.

"Well, for a moment I thought –." He interrupted himself with a slight shake of his head. Suddenly he wasn't even certain anymore of that he'd seen; his eyes could have been tricking him. It had probably just been a reflection from the fire…

But deep inside him the spark of doubt was lingering, and it wouldn't go away. Could this have been a warning of some kind?

"Listen, maybe we shouldn't do it."

"What?"

"Maybe we shouldn't go to Madagascar and look for the witch…"

Brushing a strand of red fur back behind his ear, he nervously glanced at Mea. The android frowned, slowly easing his gun back down into his holster.

"Why the hell not? A moment ago you wanted to go there real bad!" He grabbed Clemson's clenched fists to his chest with his paws and enveloped him with his bushy tail, calming him down with a cheeky smile. "Come on, what about that demon army now? And then you can't let me get away with pretending that magic doesn't exist, can you." – He wanted to hand his maker the grimoire back, but Clemson refused to take it. – "I assure you there's nothing wrong with that book."

Reluctantly Clemson took it into his own paws again and then eased his way back through it, glaring at each page in challenge, waiting for the pentacle to turn into a red eye again, waiting for the print to do just anything strange. It didn't. The cover remained exactly as it had been made years before. "You're right. I must have been seeing things…"

"That means we're going?"

Clemson smiled with a decided gleam in his eyes. "Yes."

Perhaps whatever knowledge this grimoire contained would turn out to be nothing more than senseless scribbling and idle doodling after all; perhaps their search would end fruitlessly.

However, if there was just any way to get a realistic chance of overthrowing Julien after all, he certainly wouldn't miss it.


	3. Chapter 2 - Quest for the Golden Lemur

CHAPTER 2

 **QUEST FOR THE GOLDEN LEMUR**

* * *

 **MADAGASCAR, PRESENT DAY**

Masikura gazed up at the lead-colored sky. She walked slowly, forcing herself to concentrate on the noise coming from the crunching stones underfoot, now and then interrupted by the lonely cries of the jungle birds behind her in the palm trees. She had withdrawn here to the shore after an hour of deep meditation. As was her habit, she had awakened right before sunset, when she'd felt the weakening rays of light caress her face. Just like earlier, her meditation had not gone well today; for the past two weeks she'd been unable to cleanse her mind of delusive, disturbing thoughts and bring her body and soul in harmonious accord. She could feel it deep inside her, a growing uneasiness that would soon come over all the other animals as well…

Maybe the ocean breeze would help her clear her mind and settle her nerves. She doused her face with cold, salty water. Her scales bristled as she wiped them dry and blinked to look toward the horizon. The hot dry morning had turned into a humid and windy afternoon; a haze of hovering golden fog hung in the air causing the horizon to shimmer iridescently.

This was exactly the image she'd been seeing in her dreams, over and over again…

The fresh air did nothing to ease her or allay her fears. Her thoughts followed her, colliding with each other inside her mind just like the waves crashing into the rocks in the shallow water, and the scenario she'd seen before so many times kept rolling through her mind, threatening to overwhelm her –

 _The sky over Madagascar grew hauntingly dark and ominous as the air began filling with the terrifying cries of creatures long forgotten to this world, creatures she had hoped to never have to face again…_

– As much as she wished she could be, there was no way she was wrong about predicting this; her visions were as clear as hardly any she'd ever had.

It had already begun – the sea winds were sending thick, black clouds roaring in. When she looked at them now, it was as though she could already hear the progressive roar of the approaching swarm!

The wind started blowing harder and harder, and slowly, very slowly, rain began to fall. By now the sky was almost entirely dark. As she gazed up in prayer one more time, her green eyes intensified and brightened, her tears blending with the raindrops now washing down her face. Yet she stood pale and grim as she braved the coming storm, great tension in her stance, instinctively raising the large flaps protruding from either side of the upper surface of her neck. She was deeply worried about the peace of the people, about the future of Madagascar…

But there was one thing that scared her more than anything else – the fact that she would be considered the one to blame for all this.

* * *

 **MADAGASCAR, PAST**

"Are you sure this is the right way?"

Clemson stopped the motorcycle and took the engine out of gear before he thoroughly studied their surroundings. They had reached the island after all: this morning they'd arrived in Madagascar after stowing away on a grimy cargo freighter. The past couple of hours they'd been heading deeper and deeper into the jungle, trying to find the witch's home by following the way described on the map.

By now they were stuck in the mud miles from any civilization; there didn't even seem to be any lemurs or other inhabitants of the island living around here.

"Because it sure doesn't look like it is." Mea handed his maker the map from behind.

Clemson unfolded it with a frown and checked it again, measuring distances by eye.

"Absolutely. There's no other way to the castle… according to that map, at least."

However, there was nothing to indicate that a castle should be sited anywhere around here. In fact, there was nothing in sight, nothing at all; just a lump of a hill, a huge old baobab tree standing sentry at the top, old and gnarled, and the muddy road that kept getting narrower with each turn.

They were both a little afraid that they were taking their motorcycle beyond the boundaries set for its use: they'd already had to drag it through the woods because it'd had its wheels clogged with mud so bad they wouldn't turn anymore.

Mea leaned back in his seat with a sigh. "Are you sure you got it the right way round?"

"Hey, just because I don't have an electronic mind like you doesn't mean I'm not able to read a street map!" Clemson muttered, half annoyed, half joking, but then handed him the map back, just to be sure. "Why don't you just use your built-in navigation software?"

"I'm trying to do that all the time, man. There's no service out here."

Clemson got off the bike to stretch his muscles while the android was scanning the map one more time. As he swung his right leg off, he could feel the strain in his lower back and root of his tail; both were sore and aching from the long journey.

He kicked a pebble, encouraging it to precede their ride up the muddy hill in front of them. He was afraid that the bike wouldn't make it, that it'd break down after all, and then they'd have to continue on foot.

Somewhere in the distance he then spotted an older lemur sowing seeds in a field.

"Let's ask that guy over there for directions."

They drove a little around the hill and up to the field on which the lemur was working, then pulled over and stopped again. Clemson revved the bike up a couple of times to get the man's attention. The elderly lemur – a sclater's lemur with light blue eyes – came up to them; he had a coconut beverage in his paw and a satchel slung over his shoulder which was filled with mango cores. Clemson told him about the castle they were looking for and asked him to show them the nearest way to it.

"A castle?" The stranger's eyebrows shot up when Clemson mentioned it. "You don't mean _that_ castle, do you?" – Now it was Clemson's turn to look surprised; the stranger's eyes widened and his face dropped with sheer terror for the briefest of moments before he pulled himself together and took the map Clemson was offering him.

"You guys aren't from around here, are you?" he asked after he'd studied it for a while, "I'm Horst." He reached out a paw. Clemson didn't shake it.

"What about that castle?"

"No one knows who built it, but our archeologists think it is at least two thousand years old. After our very first ruler, King Julien I, mysteriously disappeared one day when he visited that castle, it became feared and abandoned by the rest of the citizens of Madagascar. Very few lemurs have dared to visit this place after this incident; they, too, did not return."

He handed Clemson back the map. "If you want to go there, you're on the right way. But you're not seriously planning on doing that, are you? – Because after all that happened, that castle is said to be haunted, a terribly frightening place! There are ghosts roaming the desolate building; sometimes their eerie laughter can be heard from outside as it issues from those empty halls. Some say that those are the apparitions of the lemurs who have disappeared. Some say that this building isn't even a real castle at all; it's a gate leading to the netherworld, and through it you can hear the voices of the dead."

Clemson and Mea exchanged a glance. "Sounds great. – It's those ghosts we're looking for," Clemson explained to Horst, "Is one of them known to you as the Golden Lemur?"

At this question Horst visibly blanched under his fur. "Oh, yes. She's one of those lemurs who went there and never returned. It didn't happen too long ago that she disappeared; some of those living on this island have known her while she was still among us. They say she has departed from this life with many regrets. Sometimes, at night, her furious screams can be heard echoing over the courtyard… In life she was said to have great powers. Since her disappearance no other lemur has dared to visit the castle."

Recalling the lines he'd read before, Clemson kick-started the motorcycle engine back on: they were definitely on the right track. However, just as they were about to drive off, Horst stepped in their way, a terrified expression on his face.

"Don't take this lightly! No one's ever found out what exactly happened to those lemurs and why they didn't return, but it sure is an extremely dangerous place!"

When he received no answer, Horst sipped his drink noisily through the straw as he observed the two red lemurs more closely. – "Say, where are you guys from? I know any lemur around here, but I've never seen you here before." His bright blue eyes flicked suspiciously between Clemson and his android double. "Are you twins?"

"Go to hell." Mea drew his gun and fired a shot that hit the mud in front of Horst's feet, causing him to jump out of the way with a yelp. He cursed loudly, but most of his words were drowned out in a roar from the bike's engine.

"You fools! You will find that I was right, and you will regret not having listened to me! If you manage to make it back from there alive, I will plant my mango trees upside down!" they still heard him yell as they drove away without looking back.

Clemson bent low over the steering wheel, his foot hard on the gas, urging the motorcycle to greater speeds. Over the next hill in front of them the sun was sinking, gilding thick green grass. As they neared the crest of the hill his hopes swelled: a dark stone castle that looked like a towering black mountain loomed up in front of them against the dark green background of the jungle. Soon they were close enough so it filled all their vision.

Clemson killed the engine and then dropped the stand with his foot. As soon as the bike was balanced upright, they climbed off and continued afoot, pushing their way past thick underbrush and fallen, rotten trees.

"I'll buy you a drink if we actually meet a witch in there," Mea smirked.

"You got a deal," his maker replied very seriously. He then waited for Mea to give him a structural analysis of the building, but the android shook his head and told him that something was blocking his scanners and that he needed to check them later.

They continued toward the castle, fighting through ferns which were as tall as themselves, and their feet eventually found a solid path that curved up to its enormous front portal. It was flanked by two gigantic statues resembling winged lemurs. The castle had a surrounding moat which was walled and very deep, but there was a drawbridge leading over it to the entrance. The bridge was down – the entrance portal, however, was locked. Clemson tried to shove the black wing-doors open but to no avail. Frowning, he turned around to his android.

"It must be the ban that keeps the witch imprisoned… It keeps her from getting out and anyone else from going in, I guess."

"Ah, no way. Let me handle that."

Mea drew his handgun, aimed at the portal, and fired at the lock – once, twice. The door wouldn't budge. He tried his bigger gun, the one whose blast always scared Clemson a bit even though he held his ears shut when Mea fired it, but the bullets didn't even leave a scratch on the black wood. The android blinked in confusion; then he turned the gun around and peered into its barrel as if he couldn't believe it.

"I'm telling you, it's because of the ban," Clemson said, "We won't get that door open, unless…" His voice trailed off when he looked at the statues again. Each of the stone lemurs had an object in its paws, as if these objects – some kind of artifacts – represented a sort of assignment: both statues were holding a small square rock stand with a green ring on top of it. However, only the left stone lemur had a flat, round crystal fixed horizontally on the green ring… Clemson's gaze fell back on the book he still carried with him – the crystal attached to its cover looked exactly identical. He loosened it from the book and took it over to the other statue standing on the right. Mea watched him doing so; he didn't say anything, just raised an eyebrow and gave him a look that said 'as if that would work'.

Undeterred, Clemson placed the crystal atop the green ring. It fit perfectly.

 _I summon you, Golden Lemur – appear to me and grant me your powers!_

Just as he silently thought so, the pentacle inside the crystal began to glow…

There was the scraping of stone against stone – and then the giant wing doors swung open with a mighty creak of hinges, causing both lemurs to skitter back a few steps. Beyond the portal lay a massive corridor, its arched roof glowing fiery orange in the twilight of dusk, stretching ahead into dark infinity. They stared into it, taken aback.

"What the hell…!" Mea muttered, looking shocked. Clemson had hardly ever seen him look so startled; he grinned at his reaction but only for a moment.

They stepped over the crystalline threshold into the corridor.

They were only a few steps inside when an uncanny feeling of being watched suddenly burned hard into Clemson's flesh. He ignored it. The silence of eons seemed to fill his ears; Mea's skates made a strangely loud scraping sound as he curved across the stone tiles in the floor that were the size of swimming pools. At the end of the corridor a door opened into an entrance hall of enormous size; one could probably fit the entire Central Park Zoo into that hall alone.

They crossed it to the nearest flight of stairs; there was another door at the end of it, sharing the same design as the one outside, only there weren't any statues standing guard on either side of it. Judging from its size it presumably led to the main chambers of the castle. Oddly enough, it had been left ajar for some reason…

Clemson put his paw on the handle and pushed. It eerily creaked before him, like a breath of evil, moving slowly in and out as he warily stepped inside. He was greeted by an unbreakable stillness; the room was not only deserted but seemed uninhabited for a long time. It was void of any life… entirely too silent. Clemson didn't remember the last time he'd been in such a profound silence. A shiver went down his spine as the feeling of being watched grew stronger with every step he took inside, until he could almost hear the in and out breaths of the watcher.

Perhaps the witch was eyeing him now –?

He languished in the center of the room searching for any signs of life. The curtains were tightly drawn in front of the large windows, but there was enough light to see that this place had once been stylish. There was a mosaic floor; from the ceiling hung a huge chandelier with all its candles burned down. A broken grandfather clock stood in a corner; in another one there was a grand organ with intricately carved legs, its lid open, and its four tiers of black and white keys covered with layers of grime and dead leaves. A banquet table was stretching all the way through the room; like every other piece of furniture it was covered with thick layers of dust. Grass was growing through the cracks in each of the stone walls; only the back wall was hung with a huge woven red curtain.

There was a fireplace opposite the entrance door; an enormous armchair had been placed close to it. Its back was facing Clemson, but he could tell no one was sitting in there.

He approached the fireplace and squatted down to inspect the ashes. They were cold; there couldn't have been any recent fire. However, their black vestiges were spread all over the marble floor, and the strange texture of them clung to his feet; as he bowed down to brush out his fur, he suddenly noticed a soft trail carved into them… a trail of footprints.

A feeling of terror rose in his gullet. Now he was suddenly and terribly sure that they weren't alone, that there was someone else here in this castle with them –

And then the edge of his eye caught a small flash of light. He flinched. His gaze darted up toward the ceiling – catching a tiny glowing form…

A golden butterfly.

* * *

 **MADAGASCAR, PRESENT DAY**

Karl was tightening the last screw on the back of his zeppelin's underbody when his favorite cockroach came scuttled up to him to tell him something.

"What is it, Chauncey?" He put the wrench aside to take his beloved friend on his claw and bring him close to his ear, into which the cockroach excitedly chirped words only Karl or another cockroach could understand.

"Oh, really? …That sounds strange. Wait, I'll have a look at it."

Together they climbed up on the observation platform at the zeppelin's tailpiece. From up here they could also have a look at the good work they'd done: along with a hired pack of rats the two of them had spent the past four weeks patching up the big red balloon, reconstructing the transverse rings and longitudinal members that made up the framework, fixing the cables attached to the control car, and doing everything else it took to finally make the mighty zeppelin airworthy again.

After all, an evil genius of Karl's magnitude had to have a flying lair!

Leaning over the handrail, the fanaloka narrowed his eyes, peering in the direction Chauncey pointed. Dusk was beginning to envelop the island. A little further away he noticed a strange golden mist spreading throughout the jungle, hiding the base of the palm trees, slowly crawling toward his coffee fields.

Chauncey was looking at him quizzically all the while.

"Wait here for a second."

Karl grasped the wooden handrail and swung himself over and down on the other side, disappearing from Chauncey's view. He headed straight for the jungle. When he entered the woods he suddenly shivered when a breeze came up, causing the golden mist around him to rise a bit – and for a moment he thought he saw signs of movement in the swirling distance... The breeze intensified, chilling his fur. A scornful whisper seemed to pass through the leaves in the baobab tree above him.

Suddenly something darted past the edge of his sight – he whirled, but it was gone too quickly for him to make out its shape. He tried to see where it went, but the space between the trees was empty, except for a tendril of mist swirling in the breeze of his own movement. The whisper passed over him again – more than a gust of wind… the hissing of an incomprehensible, breathy language.

A rustle behind him, the faintest, softest brush of a wing against a leaf – he spun, and for a moment saw a thing that made him doubt his own eyesight: a tiny form, small like a butterfly but shimmering golden like the mist it emerged from.

 _No... It can't be!_ Karl stared at it with wide eyes, his expression changing rapidly from confusion to joy to bitterness.

Then he turned around and ran back to his lair as fast as he could.

"Everyone, prepare for takeoff! We'll launch in ten minutes!"

The rats, who had been lazing around on his fields chewing coffee beans and cheese bits after they'd finished their work, hurried to get back into the zeppelin.

Confused as to the sudden haste, Chauncey tried asking Karl why they needed to rush off like this, but the fanaloka just took him on his paw again and murmured, "I know we scheduled the test flight for tomorrow, but right now I think it's... _safer_ to do it right away. – Before we can leave, there's something else I need you to do," he then told the rats, who were now gathering around them as well, looking a little puzzled.

Karl disappeared into the hull of the airship for a moment and came back with both arms stuck out to his sides, dozens of delicate silver chains hanging from them. Attached to each chain was a small pendant that looked like a scorpion with a long spiraled tail attached to a silver-blue body. He handed the chains to his rat workers and then pointed towards the log fence he and Chauncey had put round the coffee fields in order to make clear to the other inhabitants of the island that they were their property.

"Go around that fence and hang those things up on it. Meanwhile Chauncey and I will already start filling the balloon."

The rats did as they were told and a little later, with a smoothness that something of this size should not have possessed, the zeppelin started to lift into the air. They had done good work: the takeoff was flawless, and soon they were quietly hovering over the jungle. From above they could see the golden mist had now spread anywhere but over their coffee fields.

While the rats didn't worry about it too much, Chauncey's eyes were filled with concern.

Karl knew that there was no time to explain things to him now; Chauncey had to trust him. But when he bowed down to him and looked deep into the cockroach's eyes, he knew he would.

"Don't worry; we'll be alright. I saved two for us," he murmured, and Chauncey's eyes widened with surprise when Karl opened his paw and showed him two more of the silver chains which he hadn't given to the rats. He placed one of the scorpion charms around his own neck and gently fastened the other around the cockroach's carapace.


	4. Chapter 3 - Seven

CHAPTER 3

 **SEVEN**

* * *

 **MADAGASCAR, PAST**

Speechless, Clemson watched the glowing insect flutter across the ceiling, leaving a residual trail of shimmering light behind it.

"Hey, look at that", he said to Mea but got no answer. He glanced around. The other lemur wasn't behind him anymore. Now, a flash of fear coursed through him, scraped his bones to the marrow. He turned around and fled from the room at once.

 _"Mea!"_ The sound of his cry echoed through the empty corridor with an ominous hollowness –

"Clemson…?!" The android emerged from a door nearby. "No need to yell. I was just in that room over there." He jerked his head toward the other door behind him. "Nothing in there, except from tons of dust and cobwebs… oh, and an impressive collection of what looks like some medieval torture devices." Surprised to see the distraught look on his maker's face, he drew closer to him. "What's wrong?"

But Clemson looked past him, his focus flicking to the wall behind Mea. "Look, there!"

– There was the butterfly again right above them, darting in front of where they were standing before it rose above their heads, small and hovering, glowing like a golden firefly. Just then Clemson distinctly heard a soft chuckle, so soft that at first he wasn't sure if it had been there at all or if he'd just imagined it. He flinched, feeling his pulse lurch at the eerie sound. He looked at Mea. There was a confused, uncomprehending look in the android's eyes.

Suddenly the insect fluttered off again, heading back toward the main chambers where Clemson had been before. They ran after it. As they pushed the door open they saw it hover there in midair, as if waiting for them, fluttering gracefully… alluringly.

Without hesitating Mea drew his handgun and took a clear shot at it. The glowing insect disintegrated into a swirl of golden droplets. It parted into two smaller swirls, and then the drops blended together again… There were now two butterflies.

"What the –." Mea stared up at the insects. He fired again, twice – both butterflies were split into light dots by the bullets… and both swirls parted and blended again, so there were four of them. He fired again, and now there were eight. They were encircling the two intruders, illuminating the room with their mere presence, their dusky glow bathing the chamber with a fiery sheen. They kept on multiplying on their own now until there were dozens of them, until the whole room was illuminated by their golden glow; yet grotesque shadows seemed to lumber all around them.

Clemson moved in close to the android, who stood clutching his gun and gazing up at the glowing insects as though he couldn't believe his sensors. All around there was something in the air now, something strange and subtle, a foreign atmosphere, like a penetrating odor – the odor of something unreachable, something forbidden to the mortal world. It permeated the chamber, the entire castle, changed the taste of the air like the image of a far distant land whose mysteries no living animal could ever fathom…

And then a chilling voice, high-pitched and shrill, drifted to Clemson from the shadows –

 _"Who are you?"_

He flinched at the whispered words; suddenly he found himself shivering, shivering all over, and no force of will would stop it. Whatever was happening here, he wasn't sure anymore that this was where he'd wanted to go, wasn't sure he wanted this to continue at all… but now there seemed no turning back anymore.

More voices came from every direction in the darkness, like the sounds of some passing spirit's sighs, and an icy breath froze his cheek fur –

 _"Who am I…?"_

A tiny sound in the tense scene, a girl's chuckle –

Then the chamber began to spin around him, and his vision blurred. He saw only mists. Then, enshrouded in stifling vapors of gold, there was a flame – the fiery image began deforming, contorting; it became a circle, then a spiral. And then that fiery spiral expanded further and further, swelling in his vision until it filled his sight completely –

And Clemson turned his face away and flung himself against Mea's chest, fisting his fingers in his fur. Mea's arms came around him but only for a moment – then a fierce blast tore them apart from each other, its force sending them tumbling to the floor.

Clemson felt his consciousness slipping away; for a moment the world turned black.

When he opened his eyes the chamber was well alit, filled with laughter and voices. A pile of logs was now burning in the fireplace, and soft organ music was filling the room – he was surprised by the unexpected sight of a lemur now sitting at the console of the grand organ, manipulating the keyboards, pedals, and stops. The chandelier that hung from the ceiling was alit with about a dozen candles, and the grandfather clock in the corner was ticking with a deep, stately beat.

The long banquet table was now set; upon it a wonderful feast was piled, with many platters of the most delicious-looking mangos and coconuts a lemur could imagine. And there were plenty of lemurs sitting around it, chattering and toasting one another, their glasses filled with a rose-colored liquid.

But when Clemson looked at them more closely, he found that they didn't seem to be lemurs after all: their form was the same as the one of the statues outside the castle: they had crooked horns protruding from the fur on their foreheads and large, leathery wings lying flat on their backs… their entire bodies seemed half lemur and half giant insect. There was something very disturbing about these creatures, although Clemson couldn't quite put his finger on what it was.

He blinked his eyes a few times and found that he could hardly take in what he saw; all this seemed like a weird dream… A heavy paw was laid upon his shoulder from behind, and when he turned around, Mea was looking down on him, his eyes shadowed and suspicious.

"This isn't real. None of what you see is real. Don't let your eyes trick you."

"You… you think so…?"

"Whatever paranormal phenomena you think you're just experiencing… it's all in your head. It's only your mind playing tricks on you!"

Clemson nodded, although he had doubts. His gaze was drawn towards the armchair which was now turned around; in the firelight he discerned _a slender figure sitting_ there… a lemur girl, younger than him. She was gazing across the room, silently staring in their direction… Then she _beckoned them closer_ with a _wave of_ her paw.

Clemson and Mea approached her seat; it was as though they'd emerged onto a stage. Instantly the chattering around the banquet table ceased, and a tense silence descended. Every eye in the place focused on them, _every head turned in their direction; even the organist interrupted the smooth flow of his play to observe their encounter_ _._

When they were standing before her, Clemson had his first real look at the lemur girl before him. She was sitting on the extreme edge of her chair, thin paws clenched together in her lap and tense rigidity in every line of her figure. She had black fur beneath which her skin was ghastly pale, with white patches on her flanks and belly area and a small one above her nose. She wore a dress of baobab leaves trimmed with wreaths of red roses and a cloak that seemed too heavy for her slim shoulders.

She was sitting so still that her very immobility served to draw attention to her flickering gaze; she didn't turn her head, only her eyes darted warily, searchingly across Clemson's face in an oddly questioning, oddly disturbing scrutiny.

"Welcome to my castle, traveling animals. I am Seven… the Golden Lemur."

She spoke with a slight accent revealing she hadn't been living in Madagascar all her life.

Clemson flinched at the sound of her melodious voice; it was the same voice that had spoken to him from the shadows before. He stared at her slightly parted lips and porcelain face. Wide-bowed eyebrows extended directly from a slim, sharp-edged muzzle above yellow, almond-shaped eyes, rising up a little as the red lemur now looked at her. Her long lashes lay stuck together in points against her smooth short face fur like the painted lashes of a china doll.

"I'm Clemson." He nodded a short greeting. "We've come a long way to meet you."

She reached a paw out as if to shake his, but when Clemson put out his own to take hers, his fingers passed right through hers – there was no flesh, just a touch of icy coldness, like _a frosty breeze_ that had _just_ blown across his fingers, colder than anything he had ever touched. He shivered, withdrawing his paw.

"Forgive me. It is always funny to see what kind of reaction this awakes in mortals." She laughed, a hollow, toneless, unreal chuckle. "You must know that I am not what you are; I am no longer a lemur. I have surpassed the mortal world long ago; now I am a ghost."

"Oh, really," Mea commented ironically, yet just loud enough for only his maker to hear.

Seven's gaze fell to the book Clemson was holding.

"You are the one who has broken my bonds and reopened the gate to the Light World for me," she said with great awe. At the quizzical look he gave her she took the book from his paws and took out the sheet on which the map and the pentacle were drawn. – "Years ago I was banished from the Light World – the mortal world, the one you live in –, never to return, to be locked forever here in this castle. My vicious teacher cast this spell upon me when she decided that my powers had become too great to let me dwell among the other lemurs any longer!" Her mouth tightened into a thin line as fury flitted across her eyes at this memory.

"Yes, I read about this in your teacher's book," Clemson said slowly, "It is true then…!"

She nodded. "I owe you my freedom, Clemson. After such a long time in captivity it means more to me than you could know; I shall reward you greatly for your service."

In the dimness of the firelight he watched her eyes squeeze tight and then blink. Once, twice. They were glowing in a rich amber color. – "What is it that you desire?" she asked him with a slight smile upon her face, "A golden key to ultimate power? The silver moon in the sky? I have many ways to make you a lemur of great importance – you will find that I am a truly mighty witch!"

"The hell you are," Mea scoffed, and this time she must have heard him. She rose from her seat to her full height; she was slender and graceful, noticeably smaller than Clemson and Mea. Her crimson cloak spread out behind her as she walked towards them. Every movement she made was exaggerated yet polished, as though she was acting out a play.

"You," she whispered and circled Mea, smiling again; but this time it was an eerie smile, the sort which was out of place and didn't quite fit with the wearer's persona. "You don't believe my word, do you. It seems that you were born with a strong resistance to magical power. You're the natural enemy of witches like me. No matter how much we turn your world upside down, you'll never believe in us. – But I shall prove you wrong in every syllable of that spiteful remark of yours!"

– Then she turned back toward Clemson, and her expression was soft again, her eyes sparkling with curiosity. "So what is it you wish? Riches beyond your imagination… a mountain of gold that you couldn't use up as long as you lived? Anything is fine – now that I'm free, I will give you all of it!"

Clemson could hardly believe his good fortune; he savored her every word and the light of sincerity in her eyes. All of these words held a promise of power of the most incredible kind, and she sounded so honest that he felt as if he could taste the sweetness of this power already now. Whatever had disturbed him earlier about her or the castle was now forgotten. This meeting was turning out even better than he'd imagined.

"I want to be king," he declared firmly, "I want you to make me the King of Madagascar. I want you to make the one thing I've been dreaming of all my life finally come true! Give me my own kingdom, a realm to rule over with complete sovereignty… I want every citizen of this island to swear loyalty and life-long service to me, to worship me as their one and only ruler, to obey my every command!" His eyes flared with greed at the thought, the memories of his past failures, of all the unsuccessful conquests he'd ever attempted triggering a bone-deep fury that he couldn't help. "I've never had the means to do it… I've never had enough support – no armies to fight for me, no weapons powerful enough to defeat and eliminate my enemies. But when I have magic to support me, none of that will matter anymore!"

"I see." The witch had listened to Clemson's words very attentively; when she spoke again she stared deep into his eyes. "That wish is strong within you… You wouldn't even have had to say it out loud. It's written on your face and in the corners of your heart! – I shall grant you all of this with pleasure; you deserve it ten times after all you've done for me. My magic will be yours to command… My Harpies shall become your army of doom!"

– She reached out her paw, pointing toward the long table where the winged lemurs now put their heads together, chittering excitedly; considering their exaggerated manner, their acting as if all this were a performance at a theater, and their slightly humorous style of talking, it was hard at this moment to believe in the great power they were said to possess.

Yet Clemson's heart leapt with joy at the thought of a swarm of these demonic creatures darkening the sky with an escalating thunderous roar before they would descend upon Julien and his followers and start attacking them mercilessly.

"No matter how numerous your enemies, with their help you shall win against them without fail," Seven promised with glowing eyes, "– Come, let's seal our alliance right away!"

"Aren't you forgetting something, Milady?" asked a voice from the other end of the room.

It was the organist who had spoken; even though he was sitting with his back turned to them, he seemed to be following their entire conversation. Now he turned around to them; the hood of his banana leaf tuxedo fell back, and dark curls of ash brown fur tumbled on either side of a delicate oval face. His fur was immaculately brushed; there wasn't one shiny hair out of place. An unreadable smile turned up at the corners of his mouth when he faced the red lemur, and for one confusing moment Clemson had the feeling he had seen him somewhere before but couldn't quite recall the occasion.

"And what could that be, Faraday?" The witch glanced up at him as he rose from his seat and came over to join them. – "This is Count Faraday, my head servant," she introduced him to Clemson and Mea.

Faraday folded his paws over his heart and took an elegant bow.

"In life I was once a lemur before I turned into a ghost; and like Milady I, too, am an experienced sorcerer. My knowledge and experience with magic might outweigh hers; my powers are inferior to hers, though. This is why I am a servant to Milady. If the two of you should ally, I will be at your command as well."

Clemson nodded his appreciation; this was all that mattered to him. "And why do you think we couldn't ally, Faraday?"

"I did not say that. I merely meant to remind Milady that even though you helped her regain access to the Light World, there's not much she can do there."

The witch pondered her servant's words for a while and then lowered her head.

"What he says is true," she murmured bitterly. Clemson gave her a quizzical look.

"But I thought you were free now…?"

"I am, thanks to you. However, I'm still a ghost, so whatever spell I cast, it won't have much of an effect on anything or anyone there. You see, I have no form… I don't have a body anymore. In life I was a lemur, so I once had a lemur's body; this is how you see me now. But it's a mere apparition of my former self… it has no substance. If I go with you into the Light World like this, the other lemurs will see me, but my magic will have no effect on them. They may be scared a bit but not for long since I don't really have any influence on them as long as I'm in that form. I need to materialize in order to help you change things in this world to your likings. I need fleshliness; a body which I can use, into which I will merge my soul by conducting a special ritual… a mortal sacrifice."

Her servant nodded, confirming her words. "This one would do well, for example," he said, pointing at Mea.

"Who? Me?" It was obvious that the android hadn't really been listening.

"Oh, yes." Seven gazed at him, her eyes glinting, flame-colored orbs in the darkness. "Wouldn't this be the perfect opportunity to show you how much of a witch I really am?" she asked in a sickly-sweet voice, sneering up at him. Mea spread his arms from his chest in an insouciant gesture.

"Well, bring on your best then… 'witch girl'," he boasted, his last words dripping with bemused irony. At that her face turned hard with anger; her right eye twitched slightly as she suddenly reached back as if to slap him across the face. But then she put her paw down again, and her burning yellow eyes glared into Clemson's instead.

"Are you giving him to me?" she growled. The snarl her small voice had suddenly turned into sounded very odd, like a child lemur trying to sound like a fossa. When Clemson looked into her eyes he knew that in her heart she was more ferocious than any fossa.

"No." He shook his head firmly. "What the hell are you thinking? You can't have him. He's with me."

"Then this won't work," she declared pointedly.

Disappointment washed all over Clemson like a bitter wave; it had all seemed so real to him already, the image of imminent victory so vivid and distinct that when he closed his eyes he'd already seen himself with a crown upon his head and a thousand animals bowing their heads before him in reverence… Now, none of this would ever come true.

Mea seemed to notice his discomfort and laid a paw on his shoulder.

"Give us a second to talk that over," he said to Seven and Faraday, taking Clemson aside for a private conversation. – "Just let her have this," he told his maker as soon as they were out of earshot, "I'm not afraid of her or anything."

But Clemson just shook his head at this. "Are you serious?! I can't let her sacrifice you!"

"Sacrifice? You mean, she wants to destroy me… kill me with magic, for whatever purpose that may serve, right? Well, let's just see her do that! Because how could something destroy me that doesn't even exist?!"

"How can you say that! You saw what happened to the butterflies, too…" – Clemson waved his paw across the room. – "You, too, witnessed how all of this literally appeared out of nowhere! How can you still refuse to believe in magic?!"

Mea took him by the shoulders, gently but firmly. "Well, why do _you_ keep believing in that kind of malarkey?! Really, this has gone far enough; you've got to get over that silly notion! Look around you: all I see is a little girl, some guy who's probably her grandfather, and a bunch of costumed weirdos who are all trying to have some fun with us. I have no idea what they want or who they really are… probably some social dropouts of Madagascan lemur society who were tired of being ruled by a fool like Julien, just like you were when you met him for the first time back in the Central Park Zoo. – But they sure as hell aren't witches, ghosts or anything else of that sort."

His hands slid down Clemson's arms, and he intertwined their fingers. – "You know that you can always trust my word, right?"

"Yes… of course!" Clemson set their folded paws against his chest. The android sounded so convinced, and Clemson knew that his sensors were infallible – after all, he had constructed them himself –; and everything that had happened in this castle so far seemed so fantastical, barely believable… Suddenly he wasn't sure what to believe anymore.

For a moment he considered leaving and looking for some poor sap out in the jungle instead – a different sacrifice to bring to Seven, no matter who. But then he didn't dare to; now that the ghosts were able to leave the castle, how could he be sure they would still be here when he returned? If he left now, he would risk losing his one and only chance of getting to rule Madagascar after all.

"But all this… it seems just so real!" he said to Mea, "What about the pentacle that opened the door…?"

The android shook his head. "A simple mechanism, nothing more."

"And the witch – the girl… How could she turn from a single butterfly into a lemur?"

"Look, there's plenty of things that can produce what you'd call… well, 'ghostly effects'. Electromagnetic fields; optical illusions that trick the brain into seeing unreal images. Granted, those guys obviously master some pretty impressive tricks, but there really isn't any such thing as _magic._ Maybe it's not that easy for you to see since you don't have sensors like I do. But I can assure you with every partition of my hard drive that _magic does not exist,_ so don't let them make you believe anything else, okay?"

Clemson nodded. "But what about that 'ritual' then? Why would you want to go along with something as absurd as this?"

"Well, whoever those guys are, they seem to be ready to work for us… to accept you as their leader. I say we should take that chance in any case. While they sure as hell don't have _magic_ to offer us, they could still be useful to us, don't you think? After all, they're quite an impressive group… they could still be our army. If we don't spoil their fun and go along with their little play, we may be able to get them on our side… and then, with their support, we might actually have a realistic chance of winning a fight against Julien and the rest of his pack!"

"That's true. But…" Clemson's voice trailed off, and he moved closer to the android. "What if… what if there's something to it which both you and I couldn't know, simply because I've never experienced a similar thing before and therefore couldn't program you to know about it? I just don't like this… I don't like the thought of you being used in some crazy ritual sacrifice, Mea."

– That brought a soft smile to the android's face; he wrapped his arms around his maker and held him close for a moment. "Now look," he murmured, bringing a paw up to Clemson's cheek, "If you're so sure that magic exists, then I will tell you how it can still be beaten with logic: if I'm right – if magic is nonsense –, then the girl won't manage to kill me at all. If you're right – if magic exists, and she can manage to kill me, then she is also able to bring me back to life again with the help of magic. – That makes perfect sense, doesn't it? So no matter how this ends… in any case you and I will be together again after all." He leaned closer and gently brushed his lips over Clemson's once. "You see, whichever way things turn out, you don't have to worry about anything."

Clemson pondered this for a moment, but he had nothing to say against the flawless logic of the android's computer-based thinking process. He nodded slowly.

"Yes… yes, you're right."

He still felt a tug of worry low in his gut, but then he remembered everything Seven had promised him, and these glorious prospects made him forget anything else. He turned back to the witch, bristling with anticipation of all the things she would have to offer him.

"We are ready," he said to her, "And we agree to offer you the sacrifice you require."

Everybody seemed to be listening intently as he made this declaration; the Harpies jumped up from the long table and gathered around them, giggling and chattering and slapping a bewildered Clemson on his shoulders and back. Seven gave him a vicious smirk.

"Ah, I knew you couldn't resist!"

She took a piece of red chalk from her head servant's paw and, shooing the Harpies out of her way, began drawing a figure around herself and Clemson on the floor… the precise lines of a perfect pentacle.

"That's probably going to be some fine joke with a nice smoke and fire effect," Mea murmured to his maker; and indeed the way the Harpies were now lining up along the wall made the whole affair seem quite unreal, stiffly pompous.

Two of them separated from their fellows and latched onto Mea from either side, wearing strange smiles; they led him to the woven red curtain. To Clemson's surprise there was suddenly light shining out from behind that curtain – there could be no stone wall behind it; there had to be something else on the other side… another room.

One of the Harpies lifted the curtain hem a bit and all three of them peeked under it, but Clemson was standing too far away from them to see what was there. He only saw Mea glance over his shoulder at him, and suddenly there was something in the android's eyes that hadn't been there before… a very distraught look.

Then the two Harpies ducked under the curtain hem, dragging Mea along…

The curtain fell again, and they were gone.

Seven had finished the pentacle in the meantime; she and Clemson were now standing in its center when Faraday stepped before them.

Holding an unrolled papyrus roll in front of him, he read: "The following ritual will create a bond between an animal and a witch. This alliance is permanent. The bond can only be broken by death – on the animal's part – or by the relinquishment of magical power – on the witch's part. The alliance is based on reciprocity in the following way: in return for freedom and a mortal body to live in the witch commits herself to serve the animal by every means in her power. As a consequence of this the animal is also the only being the witch has no power over. Do you both agree to these conditions?"

Clemson and Seven glanced at each other, and when he saw her nod, he nodded, too.

The other Harpies, who stood in the background watching, began cheering and clapping wildly. Faraday waved his paw dramatically and stepped aside…

The rustle of fabric as the curtain moved was accompanied by a brilliant flash of light. Smoke swirled from under the hem and rose with unnatural precision towards the ceiling. An unseen wind whipped across the front of the room, clearing it.

Clemson closed his eyes and coughed as the smoke swirled into his face, laden with a sweet, metallic fragrance oddly reminiscent of the perfume of fresh blood. When he opened them again, he found the curtain drawn aside.

In its place stood a massive apparatus, the size and shape of a sarcophagus or a coffin for a lemur-sized animal. It had two large bulb-shaped applications stuck to the sides of it. By their unnerving shape Clemson could tell that with a big animal's strength something inside it could be tightened and compressed. Along the coffin lid and the edges there were numerous large stains, dark red in color, telling mutely but eloquently of its previous use…

All Harpies flitted into the room, forming a circle as they knelt down around the machine and took each other's paws. Seven walked out of the pentacle and joined their circle, and Clemson wanted to follow her, but she held up a paw to stop him.

"You must stay right here," she said, pointing down at the pentagonal center of the five-pointed star on the floor.

"– We are ready, Faraday," she called to her servant, who had taken his seat at the organ again, and its mighty sound flooded the room as it launched into a stirring voluntary.

Within moments the witch's eyes began to shine with a brilliant white glow, and a spiraling orb of light began flowing around her as she rose into the air and levitated over the compressor as if there were no gravity. Suddenly the whole chamber was flooded with butterflies again, like wicked stars that shone in the darkness. Her slender limbs caught their shine in narrow ribbons, her black fur was awash in golden light, and her whole body began to glow as if a stage light had been placed on her and was gradually starting to intensify.

Clemson stood frozen to the spot, watching everything that happened with a strange feeling of detachment; it was as if he were dreaming, although he knew that he was not.

The witch snapped her fingers, and the two Harpies from before approached the compressor and forcefully started tightening the large bulbs.

Suddenly the compressor began to shake.

It seemed almost as though someone inside that lemur-sized coffin was struggling desperately to get out… Turning them clockwise, they screwed the bulbs tighter and tighter.

As they did, an unearthly moan came from the inside of the casket.

It was almost drowned out by the sound of the organ, but Clemson felt his chest constrict with fear. _– Just a joke with a nice smoke and fire effect…_ , he desperately tried to tell himself.

The Harpies had jumped to their feet and begun circling the casket; everything was so bright and blinding, Clemson couldn't even see if they were running or flying. Dancing a ghastly roundelay, they rose up around Seven in a frenetic chorus; they recited strange words that meant nothing to Clemson, over and over, a mantra or a prayer or an offering, spoken in low voices but faster and faster until the words seemed to blur together. Seven began singing with them; her voice was angelic, sweet and crystal-clear, yet her words sent shiver after shiver down Clemson's spine.

"Come, poor unfortunate mortal, and give yourself to me… now it's time for you to rest. I shall make you drown deeply, deeply, into the bottom of an indolent sleep. Come on, while you're still warm! I will cook you very well… with the spice of despair. I shall devour you, immediately! You shall become mine; you shall become a part of me… Ah, I've been waiting so long for this! Your laments are like a sweet orchestral melody. How beautiful your screams are! I get drunk hearing them."

Now the muffled moans coming from inside the casket were turning into sharp cries of pain that were so loud they even drowned out the Harpies' singing and the thunderously loud beats of Clemson's heart ringing in his ears.

Now he was able to clearly recognize the owner of this voice –

" _Clemson!_ " Mea was screaming his name at the top of his lungs. "Help me, Clemson! Help me, please! – Don't do this. Please, I'll do whatever you want. Don't hurt me! – Oh help me, Clemson, please –!" His screams bled together, turning into one single shriek, a sound that rose and fell but never quite ended.

Clemson opened his mouth to yell at them to stop but found himself breathless, silent, as in the helpless terror of a nightmare. Fear was searing him deeply now, to the marrow of his bones, to his very soul. His knees went weak; he was paralyzed with fear, yet couldn't remove his eyes from the gruesome spectacle. Around this scene the glittering butterflies flitted through the darkness, mesmerizing, in a beautiful, beautiful dance… a funeral dance for a lemur's sacrifice.

"Come, fear the darkness in my heart," Seven kept on singing, making her voice grate mockingly, allowing the tune to waver. "Let us dance, tonight, alone… Dance! Let me hear the beautiful sound of your voice twisted in anguish… You can't run away. – Scary, scary, this game shall never end!"

Clemson clenched his paws into fists; his trembling paralysis became a sudden surge of fragile, terrified strength, and he tore himself free, broke out of the pentacle and threw himself at the Harpies.

But he couldn't break their dance; this ritual, once started, was not to be stopped –

The music kept swelling, and their chanting grew louder and louder, building into a thunderous crescendo, and Seven was shrieking her own insane aria.

"Now, your wings are broken… your butterfly has fallen from the sky. Rest in peace, poor soul – what remains of you shall now live within me!"

 _Don't do it_ , Clemson screamed, _Please don't hurt him! Please, please_ … _!_ But the words never formed on his lips; they died in his mind.

The world around him spun hard and fast, and then everything went dark.

When he opened his eyes, he was lying on the floor shaking all over. The singing had ceased. The Harpies were standing in line again with their faces turned toward him. They were gazing down at him with glistening eyes, as if something had filled them with victorious rapture.

A broad smile was playing across Seven's lips as she descended back to the ground, the light around her fading and her eyes turning back to their normal yellow color. She stepped towards Clemson, the red curtain falling behind her, hiding the Harpies, the butterflies, the apparatus… as if all this had been nothing but a strange dream.

"It is done!" she declared happily, her arms extending in a wide sweep. She offered Clemson a paw to help him up, and when he reached for it this time, warm fingers were closing around his; she was now completely solid like a living lemur. She smiled at him, her pale lips suddenly lush and wet and red, as if she'd just eaten well.

"Let's begin right away: let's start this tale of tragedy! I've prepared a truly mighty spell – you shall see!" And then she proudly raised her voice to chant once more: " _Come rain, come winds, cut this island off from the rest of the Light World, so nobody will disturb this glorious tale of ultimate reign! Blow, wind – cry, thunder! Throw all citizens of Madagascar into another world, into a world where the only thing left for them to say is… 'All hail King Clemson'!_ "


	5. Chapter 4 - Conquest of Madagascar

CHAPTER 4

 **CONQUEST OF MADAGASCAR**

* * *

 **MADAGASCAR, PRESENT DAY**

The sun had long since slipped behind the horizon when dark clouds began gathering in the sky over Madagascar, and a low moaning of wind, the prelude to a storm, came up hoarsely, threateningly. Lightning began streaking the sky in an eerie array of glistening white.

Every citizen on the island could sense there was something in the air… something more than a thunderstorm. The fossa stopped momentarily in a preying position, listening, waiting; then, sensing the growing peril, they roared and began attacking each other in frustration. The crocodiles paced sleeplessly around their water holes, stopping every once in a while to gaze at the darkening sky. The nocturnal birds in the trees sent forth mournful but shrill warning cries to alarm their neighbors of the impending danger.

Down by the shore King Julien and a small group of other lemurs were having a midnight beach party, not aware of anything yet. They were merrily shaking their booties when their ill-fated celebration was suddenly interrupted by a tremendous burst of thunder in the distance. They stopped dancing and ducked instinctively, gazes flying upward.

While a moment ago a bright moon had been standing overhead in the dark blue night sky, they were surprised to find it now hidden in a dense black vapor, huge dark clouds piling up on one another like the waves of a vast and stormy sea, illuminated almost every minute by the glare of a forked flash.

"Okay everybody, maybe we should take a break here. This looks like a very bad storm coming up…" Julien turned the volume of the boombox down, and the other lemurs began gathering the beach mats, sunshades, coconut halves with remaining juice in them, and any other party supplies they'd brought along out here.

"Yeah, we could go on partying somewhere inside," Horst suggested, "Maybe at Ted's. You've got that new hobby room there which you wanted to show us, don't you, Ted?"

"Sure, why don't we –."

Another clap of thunder overpowered the rest of the golden bamboo lemur's answer.

Eagerly performing her duty as Captain of the Ringtail Guard, Clover was carefully supervising the party from the top of a palm tree in the vicinity. When she heard the first crack of thunder in the air, she left her post at once and dutifully showed up to help her king and the rest of the people get into a safe place as fast as possible. After a thorough and accurate enumeration of the assembled she asked, "Your Majesty, where's Maurice?"

"Oh, I sent Momo home a while ago to get us some bigger bass amps," Julien explained, "Couldn't you run over and tell him to bring them to Ted's house instead?"

"On it!" Clover saluted and was about to leave when a vivid sheet of lightning began filling the sky directly above her head. A strange shiver caused her fur to stand on end.

"Your Majesty," she said warningly, "I'm starting to get a bad feeling."

Julien gave her a quizzical look. "What kind of bad feeling, exactly?"

She glanced around, seeming more and more tensed by the moment. Her left paw was clutching her tail now, which was violently twitching, indicating impending danger.

"I'm not sure. Like something's coming…"

"A thunderstorm?" he asked.

"No," she replied, shaking her head. "No, something else."

When they gazed overhead again, they found there was something odd about the sky: those weren't black, dirty-looking storm clouds, like they'd thought at first. The color was off; it was much darker, a much different shade than usually, like there was something wrong about the atmosphere around the whole island, like something had changed about it. And when they kept staring up for a while, they saw that those weren't only clouds.

Those were... _flying lemurs_.

Not just a swarm, but a swarm of swarms – those strange creatures had drawn into a cloud so massive that the moon disappeared completely behind them. Hovering up high all over Madagascar, they darkened the skies, like the power of an unnatural lunar eclipse. The mixed and deepened buzzing of their thousand wings beating and flapping made a noise not unlike a distant waterfall, or the hidden roar of an abyss.

Julien and Clover exchanged a look of confused disbelief that turned almost instantly into a very startled expression –

Just then a single strike of lightning weaved itself through the hovering creatures, lighting up their eerie faces for a moment. The clouds parted violently; an intense golden glow erupted from the sky and then descended with lightning speed. Like a shot the huge golden ball hit the surface of the sand, only a few feet away from where Julien and the other lemurs were standing – they jumped back, some of them crying out in fear. It left a trail of debris, cracking and snapping from intense heat. Specks of small fires dotted the land, and at the end of the burning trail two glowing forms began shaping…

Unable to believe his eyes, Julien stared at the golden mist in front of him as it thickened and then slowly assumed the shape of two lemurs – one of whom was terribly, terribly familiar to him.

"It's been a while, Julie." Clemson's voice was soft, almost a caress, and Julien shuddered all over. The red lemur's face looked very dark as he took a step towards his arch enemy, but his eyes were ablaze, as if a storm was raging inside him, blotting out all sanity.

"Our time has finally come. – You hoped it would never happen, didn't you… but deep down you always knew that this day would come."

The other lemur – a girl with black fur and a wicked smile, smaller and younger than Clemson – came up to his side, and they stood back to back, as if preparing themselves for the greatest attack ever undertaken on Madagascar.

Clemson's dark gaze raked Julien from whisker to toe, and then his lips parted in a smile so malicious it could have held its own in the deepest parts of hell. – "Now you will embrace the darkness, my old foe, and let the shadows sweep you from this world once and for all!"

Julien gave no answer. He stood frozen to the spot, couldn't breathe, couldn't think.

Clover was by his side in a flash; she narrowed her eyes, putting two fingers to her ear and talking into her imaginary earpiece. "Hostiles in the perimeter… I got this."

Clemson's appearance didn't seem to scare her in the slightest, nor did the fact that he'd materialized literally out of thin air in front of them and was therefore obviously endowed with magical powers. "Well, well, that's a voice we haven't heard for a long time! Still the hoarder of lies, the old bastard you always were, aren't you, Clemson?" she said, pure hatred and anger dripping from her every word, "Do you really think I'd allow you to bring this kingdom to its knees just like that? I will stop you like I did before – and this time I won't make the mistake of letting you live! – This time I'll grind you, smash you, and crush you into something ugly even while you're still alive!"

As she spoke she stepped closer to him, clenching her fists and audibly cracking her knuckles with the movements, preparing to break every bone in the red lemur's body.

However, before she could attack, the lemur girl at his side stepped in her way.

"Be quiet and let the new king speak!"

She held out a paw against Clover, and the other lemurs gaped in awe when they suddenly saw blue flames dancing along her fingertips – and Clover was stopped dead in her tracks. In a matter of seconds her body temperature dove about thirty degrees below the norm – the skin under her fur was starting to turn blue, incrementally at first, but then faster the longer the witch held out her burning paw against her. Little shards of ice began forming in her fur. They saw her face contort in disbelief, in painful horror – and there was something in her eyes they'd never seen before: stark fear. She didn't even have time to scream. Her frozen body cracked to the ground like a giant rock.

" _Clover!_ " Her friends cried her name in unison; they wanted to come to her for support but didn't dare as they feared they might suffer the same fate as her. Clemson smiled, kicking some sand over her frozen, motionless form.

"Meet Seven, the Golden Lemur," he said, gesturing toward the witch by his side, "She is my servant of darkness – and so are those." – He pointed one finger to the sky, where the Harpies were hovering threateningly. – "You have just witnessed the extent of Seven's powers – now let us show you what they can do…" He nodded at Seven, and she raised her paw again, this time against the crowd of lemurs that were assembled around Julien –

The one standing closest to the witch was poor Dorothy. One of the Harpies dove down at her so fast they only heard her scream – she didn't even have time to see what had touched her. For about ten seconds she just stood there motionlessly, her eyes starting from her head in stark and horrifying terror and her mouth wide open. Then, before any of her startled audience could collect their scattered wits or move towards her, she crumpled at the knees like a rag doll and fell forward into the sand in a dead faint. Her orange eyes widened as she gasped out her final breath and remained open after her heart had stopped.

"No… _No!_ Dorothy!" Ted was by his wife's side in a flash – he stood over her in breathless anxiety, frozen, unable to recover from the shock. Then, all of a sudden, Dorothy's body moved – just her eyelids, dropping down over her eyes before they lifted again. She stared upwards at Ted, and sheer horror flooded them as right in front of their very eyes she started to rot. Her fur fell out in clumps and the flesh beneath went ashen, then gray, her features thinning out, skin starting to peel away from her bones. And then her ghastly figure twitched and moved, lifted her head to speak one last time to her husband – " _Help me_."

Ted screamed as she spoke; her whispered words were delivered through unmoving lips. It was as if her soul had already detached itself from her, and something or someone else had taken possession of her body and spoke through her mouth. She whispered it again, "Help me…"

Ted lifted his paw towards her. Just as his fingers touched her fur, she crumpled back down to the ground, and her eyes fell closed and wouldn't open anymore.

This was too much – sheer panic broke out among the assembled lemurs, and they ran shrieking in all directions.

"WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!" Willie yelled.

Just then the witch raised her paws a third time, and all the Harpies up there changed their forms, shape-shifting into flaming balls – a deadly hail of fire came raining down on the island, and soon the power of the flames began to burn everything. Only the one demon that had killed Dorothy had kept its previous form; it was kneeling by its victim's side, sinking razor-sharp teeth into Dorothy's flesh and feasting upon it, two smooth red rivulets of blood trickling down from the corners of its smiling mouth. Dorothy's lifeless body lay among a red spot of sand drenched with her own blood as her scared dead eyes stared into the shadows above. Burning specks fell into her eyes and she didn't blink, fell into her gaping mouth, but she didn't react.

Julien looked away. He couldn't watch this.

He couldn't think, couldn't believe this was really happening.

While everything around them collapsed into chaos, he and Clemson stood opposite each other, silent, intent. They stared at each other without speaking, old enemies, practiced antagonists, each one waiting for the other to make a move.

"Now is the moment, Julie…" When the red lemur finally spoke his voice was low, almost soft. "Now is the time to release pure darkness across Madagascar. Now this wretched kingdom shall fall – the fires of death will rise, and the ashes of the jungle will stain this island. Now you shall witness how I'll strip your realm to the very core and watch it all burn!"

Julien said nothing. He wanted to run, to flee like the others, but he couldn't get his legs to move. When he looked at Clemson now, everything that had happened between them came rushing again over Julien in a cold sweat, freezing him into immobility. All the scars and fears the red lemur had burned deep into his soul were flaming up anew, and images of the past were relentlessly assaulting him again at once – there was Clemson, swiping a crowbar at him and throwing him into a dark crate, there was Clemson, smirking down on him as he was trapped in an icy well, there was Clemson, right next to him in a dark habitat in Hoboken, holding a knife to his throat…

 _This can't be true, this can't be true,_ he kept on telling himself,but he just knew that it was.

And when he realized this, all the images broke apart and fell on him in a dark flood, and he finally turned on his heels and fled with a heart-wrenching cry.

* * *

Back in the jungle Maurice was alone in the plane looking for a bigger amplifier, just like his king had asked him to. Once again being chosen by Julien as the one who had to do all the work while the others continued partying wildly at the beach, he'd felt quite disgruntled at first about being tasked with this. However, unable to refuse Julien anything as he'd always be, he'd given in this time as well and had left to get his king what he wanted.

He'd found the amplifier Julien had asked for and all the wiring necessary to connect it to the boombox as well; now he only needed to find a handcart or something of the like, since he sure as hell wouldn't be able to carry the 19-inch rack-sized box on his back all the way out to the beach. He was back in the throne room, which was the plane's cockpit, when he heard someone climb up the baobab tree –

Before he could move or say a word, the curtain flew open and Julien burst into the room, crying out as if he were caught in the grip of the most vicious of nightmares.

" _Help me, Maurice!_ " he screamed, "He'll kill me! Clemson… he's – he's here – he's going to kill me!"

His eyes fierce and wide with panic, he very nearly collapsed right there between the passenger seats, but Maurice hurled himself forward to catch him, dropping everything else he was holding; in a bound-up, tangled mess of wires they both went down to the floor.

Barely realizing what was happening, Maurice clutched the younger lemur against his chest, surrounding him, easing his panic, warming him until his violent trembling subsided a little. When Julien looked up at him again, his eyes were filled with tears.

"Please," he sobbed, "Please, Momo, don't let him hurt me again. Don't let him!"

Maurice shook his head in silent terror. Why was this happening now?

He felt as if he had suddenly stepped into some grinding nightmare where time ran backward, backward to the time when Julien would wake up screaming like this from his recurring nightmares of Hoboken, after the red lemur had harassed him for the first time. The memory cut through his heart like a knife. He looked down at Julien for a moment, and a rush of love pushed through him like tidal water.

"He's not here," he murmured, softly drawing Julien's paws from his teary face, "You don't have to worry. What happened between you and Clemson is in the past, once and for all."

"No." Julien stared deep into his eyes. "No, it isn't! He's come back – he's here now, down at the beach. He's got an army of magical creatures – they obey him, and – and Clover and Dorothy –!"

Maurice could only shake his head in confusion at the words that fell from his lips in incoherent bursts. "Julien, please calm down…" He smoothed a strand of wet fur from the younger lemur's face. "I thought you were over all that…!"

"No, Momo! I'm telling you I'm not having nightmares again, it's –!"

The rest of his words were drowned out by the terrible noise of the cabin ceiling above their heads being violently ripped open – they were staring right into the face of a creature so ugly that the mere sight of it made Maurice scream. It was oddly lemur-like in structure, but no lemur had leathery wings on their back that each stretched out nearly six feet and protruding teeth that looked as sharp as a guillotine blade!

"You die now, animals," the creature roared, beady, hateful red eyes glaring down at Maurice and Julien. The next thing they knew, the two of them were running for their lives, a wild Harpy tight on their heels. They stumbled down the baobab tree together; clutching each other's paws tightly, they ran back to the village as fast as they could.

It was on fire.

Chaos had descended swiftly upon the whole island. Horrified screams of fear and pain pierced the air – they reverberated in the depths of the jungle, where many palm trees and baobabs stood scorched and blackened. The fire heated the air, turning night into gloomy twilight all around them. The Harpies had reassumed their original form; they were now dashing back and forth between the trees, holding torches which they used ruthlessly to set the lemurs' cottages ablaze. All around lemurs were running from their burning homes, trying to escape a fiery death.

Julien and Maurice raced through the village, dodging any obstacle in their path, not knowing where to go, trying to find just any way out. But there was none – this was the curse of living on an island like they did: all options for escape were limited due to its surface; there was no nearby land to flee into.

They spotted a glade right ahead of them – when they saw that it was swarming with Harpies, they staggered to a wrenching halt and quickly hid behind a slender tree trunk under the cover of some bigger leaves.

"What are those… _things?_ " Maurice gasped, peering around the trunk at the Harpies with wide eyes, "What in Frank's name is going on here?!"

Shivering violently, Julien clutched his advisor's shoulders. "See? I told you this isn't just a nightmare. He's finally made it. Clemson has come back… he's here to take over Madagascar at last. And he has a good chance of succeeding, now that he's got those demons working for him, wreaking more destruction than any animal ever could – just look at this," he said, waving his paw over the burning jungle, "They won't stop coming at us until we surrender to him, until he has taken my crown… my life from me." And then he began to cry again, a soft exhausted sound of helplessness, his paws covering his face. "Oh Maurice, we're losing everything! This… this is terrible," he stammered, "So terrible."

Maurice held him close, and Julien lay shivering against him, hiding his face in the older lemur's chest fur as the world around them went down in fire and heat and shrieks of agony.

"No. This can't be it. This can't be the end..!" Maurice clenched his paws into fists.

Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a slight movement beside them. He flinched –

"Quick!" someone whispered into his ear, "This way!"

With great surprise the two lemurs watched as a well-known figure appeared right next to them, her scales beginning to form a contrast to the rippled bark of the trunk as she gradually became visible… Masikura.

Without a word the chameleon lady began running on ahead, and they just followed her wherever she was leading them. They were darting through the undergrowth and across the few paths the fire hadn't reached yet, crushing shrubs and bending and snapping slim branches as they ran, and suddenly they found themselves in a remote place of the island which they usually avoided like the plague –

Karl the Fanaloka's territory.

Its owner didn't seem to be home, though – the airship's landing site was empty.

Although surrounded by burned land, the entire place was in surprisingly good shape; unlike the rest of the jungle it was left completely untouched by the fire. They stopped at the far edge of one of the fields, coffee plants prospering beautifully in front of them, not one of them charred or burned down.

Maurice was bent over sweating, catching his breath. "What do we want here?" he asked, panting, "That's enemy territory."

"It is currently the only safe place on this island," Masikura explained, "The only place where the witch's magic cannot touch us… her spells have no effects here; her power is broken."

Julien took off his crown and wiped his forehead with the end of his tail. "Why's that?"

The chameleon lady climbed up one of the wooden stakes driven into the earth all around the field and began to lift something from the pointed end, something delicate and silver – when she had raised the length of it a small object slithered off the end and landed noiselessly among the leaves to their feet. Julien bowed down to pick it up – a small charm, shaped like a scorpion.

"Scorpions have the power to block magic," said Masikura, "They are the only animals inherently immune to it. With the right spell that special power of theirs can be sealed into amulets like this one. I see there are several more of those hung all around this log fence; Karl has protected his property well. The witch's spells are useless inside here."

Julien frowned. "Karl knows about such things?"

Masikura was silent and looked away.

"Oh, but we could've guessed that he does, couldn't we," said Maurice, "Just remember how he was, uh…"

"– Fooling around in my bedroom? You're right, Momo. I've always been wondering how he did it… how he was capable of entering my room without leaving any hint of his presence until he wanted it to be revealed. How he could light and extinguish my candles merely on mental command…"

Masikura nodded thoughtfully. "He, too, has been trained in magic. – Obviously, I mean. Though he probably isn't as mighty as the witch who is serving that foreign lemur now."

"Yes, and besides Karl is our enemy. We can't rely on him to help us in any way. But we do need help, urgently." Julien looked up to the sky and then back at his advisor. "I can think of only four animals in the whole wide world who will be one hundred per cent sure about what to do in a situation like this…"

It took Maurice a moment to realize what he meant; then a bright smile broke over his face. "The penguins…!"

Julien smiled in return. "Yes. They'll know what to do. They can get everything fixed. And they've helped us defeat Clemson before; if anyone can defeat him now, it's them."

"You mean the four birds who brought you back here from New York, King Julien?" Masikura asked, and they nodded. – "It will be difficult to let them know that their help is required…"

"Can't we send Xixi out to just fly over the ocean or try to sneak to the shore and get us a boat to escape from here?"

Maurice scratched the back of his head. "I don't know, Your Majesty. It'll take ages until we reach New York that way. By the time we return we may not find anyone alive here anymore!"

Masikura nodded. "And we could not even do that. They can come to Madagascar from outside, but we cannot go to them. Nobody can leave this island right now." She raised a green finger toward the sky, pointing at the dense golden fog hovering overhead, which clouded the sky as if it were filled with a sense of foreboding, as if bad omens were hanging in its very structure. "The witch sealed us off from the world."

"Then what do we do?" Julien asked, looking very worried.

Masikura had grabbed a few coffee beans in her palms from the plants growing around them and rubbed them between her fingers. "We will call them with another spell, a counter-spell that will break through the witch's restrictions."

"A spell?" Julien and Maurice exchanged a glance. "You… you can do that, too, Masikura?"

Her eyebrows shot up. "I am a fortune teller. It is only natural that the Sky Gods have bestowed me with magical abilities."

"Oh, alright…" They watched as she began to drop the beans at their feet, strewing them artfully on the ground around them, one closely after the other, in a way they began taking on a certain shape.

"Don't move. Stay right where you are," she said to them, dropping the last bean into the earth, and only then did Maurice realize that they were standing in the center of a five-pointed star that had been laid out around them. He wanted to ask her more about this, but there was no time; Masikura joined them where they were standing, indicating that all three of them should take each other's paws.

Then they closed their eyes as she initiated the ritual.

"Let us begin. Let the circle not be broken… Concentrate upon the faces of those you would like to see." She began a mantra in old Malagasy and chanted it for a while, then another and another. The unknown words rose in a hypnotizing tone, penetrating the core of their souls and sending shivers down their spines.

"You are far away… Only in my dreams I can speak to you; only in this vision of yours we can be reunited. I beg you to hear my voice, to hear our plea for help!"

Maurice had no idea what she was doing, nor had he known that the chameleon lady was able to do such things at all, but he could feel the effects of it pulling strongly on him. A strange form of energy was coursing through him, a supernatural force that seemed to charge every cell of his body with throbbing vigor. Julien seemed to experience the same; Maurice could feel the younger lemur's paw tightening in his own as Masikura continued her chant.

"– Yes, there is something here… something terrible! I feel its presence – fear, anger, hatred. Oh! Oh! There is evil here – monstrous, terrible evil! Consuming hunger. Hatred of all that lives. Hatred of lemurs. It is strong, overpowering. A hunger that will never die!"

And suddenly her voice broke, and her last words dissolved into racking sobs.

"– Come, brave penguins! Come and save us from it – from the one who has finally returned… the long-forgotten terror which devours all life, all light. It has a name – Seven! Seven!"

* * *

 **NEW YORK, PRESENT DAY**

Thousands of miles away, under a bright and sunny sky in New York, the penguins were preparing for air combat training.

They'd snuck out of the zoo and into a remote, human-free corner of Central Park where they were now about to test their new planes. The four aircrafts – christened _Maverick I_ to _IV –_ were nostalgic old models of biplanes, dark red and dark yellow, with huge wheels and only two seats. Of course they had originally been toy planes – the penguins had gotten them from two humans once during a snow-cone trip in the park, where they'd used them to tame a wild Marlene and keep her from throwing Julien off the Central Park obelisk. Since then they had stored them in their HQ, where Kowalski had been tinkering with them until this very day.

After months and months of work, he'd finally managed to turn them into proper fighter jets – it hadn't been easy, but after all, he'd once even managed to make a pretzel cart fly, so he hadn't given up on this task until it was done.

Now they were finally ready for the big test: the once open cockpits were now enclosed by a sliding Plexiglas canopy and protected in front by a bullet-proof windshield, and all the controls were ameliorated with unique air-control maneuvering capabilities that could easily match those of any real plane – Kowalski had promised they would be flying like birds above the clouds.

The three other penguins were already strapped and hooked into their pilot seats when Skipper went over the preflight checks with them. He did the usual rundown, and they responded: "Brakes – brakes okay. Fuel – check. Compass – synched. Canopy – handle closed, hooks engaged. Command lever – forward. Wings – twenty degrees. Visual check – twenty degrees, okay. Flaps and slats down – check. Check controls – okay. Check warning lights all out, are yours? Mine are – check, all out. We're ready to fly, boys!"

Smiling wide, the four of them closed the Plexiglas bubbles over their heads.

Skipper nudged the throttles and the _Maverick I_ began to roll forward, her wheels bouncing over the bumps in the meadow as he eased her onto the makeshift runway they had laid out through the southern half of the park, marked by pylons along each side. When he looked side to side, the wings extending out, he could see a hint of the other three planes in his peripheral vision, coming in on the runway behind him.

He pushed the plane to go faster, keeping one eye on the runway and one eye on the instrument panel. He watched as the end came closer and steadily pulled back on the steering lever. The nose began pulling up and the front wheels left the grass; he felt the rough ground fall away as the plane took to the sky. He put both flippers on the steering lever and pulled it back further, soaring higher. In the backwards-looking periscope he could see that his men were following him.

" _Good head wind today, huh?_ " he heard Kowalski's voice over the plane-to-plane frequency.

" _I can see our whole zoo from up here!_ " Private called happily into his microphone, his voice overflowing with boyish excitement, _"Ha – who says penguins can't fly?!"_

The zoo was closed because of a holiday, so they could be sure Alice wouldn't be there to notice and interrupt this very important piloting exercise.

The task Skipper had given himself and his team sounded simple enough: pilot the plane from Central Park back into the zoo and bring it in for a smooth landing. However, after having all the airspace in the world at one's disposal, narrowing down the sights to an optimum landing speed of 120 knots, through potential updrafts and downpulls, and then setting down in a landing area the relative size of a postage stamp was in fact quite a tricky undertaking.

The destined landing area was the lemur habitat, which was still empty; Alice and her co-workers seemed to have given up looking for the disappeared lemurs by now, yet hadn't found any new animals to replace them with. The penguins and their new friends, the North Wind team, were just fine with this; Agent Classified and the others had seized the opportunity to establish a secret lair there next to the penguins' HQ. And since the North Wind team was on a mission somewhere in Bangladesh right now, they had allowed the penguins to use the allegedly empty lemur habitat for combat training anytime they wanted.

Skipper circled the park, diving and ascending to keep all three other planes in sight. He flicked his glance starboard and up – Kowalski and Rico were flying perfect formation; the _Maverick II_ and _III_ were streaking like twin comets across the sky, so well-coordinated that they seemed two parts of the same intelligence.

"Nice move, boys," he commented and then, peering into his periscope, looked for the youngest penguin. The _Maverick IV_ was flying way ahead of the others, already on a track toward the touchdown zone. Skipper knew that the rookie wasn't particularly prone to flying, so he always attempted to get aerial missions done as soon as possible, without any tricks or daring feats.

"– Ahh… a little high there on the left, don't you think, Private?" – Nothing serious, just that he was coming in on a wing tip instead of on landing gear.

" _Roger that, Skipper,_ " came Private's answer over his headphones. The leader watched the _Maverick IV_ roll a quarter turn, five degrees right wing down and five degrees right sideslip, and a moment later she broke over the second makeshift runway in the lemur habitat and smoothly rolled out there.

" _Mission accomplished, Skipper,_ " Private reported before he clambered out of the plane.

"Good job, Private!"

Skipper could understand him – flying at this speed was hard, physically exhausting. He could feel it all too well himself – six and a half times the pull of gravity made his head weigh over a hundred pounds and flattened his body against the seat so tight he couldn't even twitch. He knew that it could've twisted up his innards badly if he hadn't been properly strapped up. Every time the plane made a sharp turn or went vertical in a soar or a dive, his body took a beating heavier than being kicked in the stomach by Roy or Bert.

Yet Skipper found that he loved it – suddenly he regretted that he hadn't further pursued an aerial career earlier in military service. Not even when Kowalski had told him this morning that the planes were ready would he have ever believed that flying could be so much fun! But now he found that he was truly enjoying it – much more than piloting big passenger planes, like they'd done back then in Africa.

The sensations of being airborne were like nothing ever imagined by the earthbound, he thought to himself – perhaps this was his fate as a flightless bird: the idea and the experience of flying seemed all the more fascinating to him.

A little later Rico veered off to turn the _Maverick III_ in as well, and Skipper watched as he came gliding in smoothly. He would wait for Kowalski to land as well and then come in last, showing his men how to go for a perfect landing.

But not yet – for now he wanted to experience this new-found feeling of power, of limitless freedom a little more. He pulled around to the right – the horizon tilted to ninety degrees. Then a hard bank left – the _Maverick I_ did this just as well as any real plane!

And then he pushed the throttle all the way forward and rocketed across the sky as if wanting to let go of gravity once and for all. Pushed back in his pilot seat as the plane started climbing, he felt the power of the engines revving up and up and up while he was leaving a trail of vapor behind him like a snowy rainbow across the earth. He jerked the stick right, and the _Maverick I_ took an impossible left-angle turn – Kowalski had done an outstanding job: there were only a few aircrafts which he knew could do this at all!

The turbo cranked faster, the screaming engine seemed ready to explode – higher and higher, it couldn't go any higher… but it did and it did again, roaring by and away as Skipper shoved her into overdrive.

" _Skipper, we're supposed to fly at 30,000 feet, but you've already climbed way over 41,000 feet – that's really the maximum altitude at which the aircraft is supposed to be flown!_ " Kowalski's admonishing voice blared over the plane-to-plane frequency.

But Skipper's piloting spirit had been sparked, and it didn't cool down that easily. Up here was control, power, a chance to test himself against gravity, the one thing no living being on this earth ever seemed to be able to defeat.

"Oh, come on, Kowalski… I've done maneuvers like this before. And you know what that's like, don't you... You'll never know what you can do until you get it up as high as you can go!"

He laughed, becoming light-headed. He felt his heart quicken – nothing could stop this kick. That was what it felt like to be punch-drunk on adrenaline.

 _The engine is the heart of an airplane, but the pilot is her soul_ , he thought to himself.

"Hoo ha! The further on the edge, the hotter the intensity! Just watch it, boys – I'm going vertical!"

The _Maverick I_ exploded into high afterburner as she rocketed toward space. Now in direct line with the sun, Skipper's canopy was suddenly sprayed with a blazing glare – he was flying blind. The plane was shooting ahead like a projectile, obeying the laws of physics only, not his touch on the instruments – it was, for the moment, out of control.

But he was familiar with that situation, and he knew he could take it easily; he was a good pilot, the best of the four. He gripped the steering lever tight with both flippers –

And then something hit him, hit him hard. It came at him in a huge blast that drove out everything else – the sound of the engine, the clouds ahead, his own absent awareness of himself as a unique creature of animalhood in an endless blue sky. It was as if someone had put a psychic gun to his head and shot him with a scream that went across day and night.

 _"COME BRAVE PENGUINS COME AND SAVE US!"_


	6. Chapter 5 - Danger Zone

CHAPTER 5

 **DANGER ZONE**

Skipper was staring straight into the sun as if he was being taken into some kind of other world, far away from his.

It was an unknown lady's voice; she was screaming for his help with all her might.

His head seemed to shiver with the force of the scream, and suddenly he found he was frozen, one of the most dangerous things that could happen to a pilot in the air. He didn't understand what was happening to him – was he suffering oxygen deprivation because the air was so thin up here?

For the first time, fear reared its head above the adrenaline, and he got angry with himself for having let things get so out of hand – if he wasn't fit enough for such heights, why couldn't he have just made his way straight to the lemur habitat like the others? How often had he told his own men to follow proper procedures and not to monkey around –!

And then it came again –

 _"SKIPPER!"_

A second cry – and this time he knew the voice…! He saw his own eyes reflected in the windshield, widening, surprised. _Julien…?!_

He heard him again, and there was Maurice's voice now, too, and then the voices came over the air all at once, united in a single thought that was arrowed at Skipper with a mental force he'd never experienced before.

 _"OH SKIPPER OH PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE COME!"_

He winced and jerked backward on the seat. His upper and lower beak came together with a hard click, and his flippers let go of the steering lever and flew up involuntarily to the level of his chest and then settled back again. For a moment his eyelids fluttered limply, with no conscious control, and he clung to the steering lever, his heart thudding painfully in his chest, his face a sickly gray color.

" _Damn it, come on, damn it – move, Skipper!_ "

– The sound of Kowalski's voice blaring over his headphones brought him back to reality with a start. He leaned back against the leather seat and closed his eyes. There was nothing left of the vision – the last of it had faded out, and all that was left was a sick, thudding headache, as if his brain had been twisted and wrung out and hung up to dry.

This had been pure panic, each word screamed aloud, as though the owners of these voices were enduring a nightmare of unfathomable terror and with no end in sight.

He looked down at his flippers. Hot sunshine lay on them but all his feathers were still standing on end. Slowly he came to realize what was going on…

When they had parted back then in Madagascar, they had arranged for the lemurs to call them if they needed help; he remembered that.

And now they were calling.

* * *

 **MADAGASCAR, PRESENT DAY**

The ensuing afternoon Clemson was watching from a window of the castle the destruction that had been wreaked upon all of Madagascar.

The battle had died down to isolated skirmishes between Harpies and animals; most of the animals had already given up, though, and were carrying away the dead and wounded on their shoulders. Half the jungle had been burned down; after their raid the Harpies had left behind only blackened tree stumps and sloughs of mud, which gave the terrain the scarred look of a battlefield. The main baobab where Julien resided had lost many leaves. Twisted and mangled bodies of different animals littered the ground like ripe fruit – an aye-aye with broken bones and severed limbs here, a decapitated lemur there, the disemboweled torso of a crocodile down by the riverside. Some of the Harpies were circling over the scene, howling a victory song; some were sorting through the bloody wreckage on the ground, their claws stabbing at dead gelatinous eyeballs.

Seven had carried out orders in Clemson's name all day long, using her magical powers to his advantage to an extent he wouldn't have thought possible. He had also underestimated her fighting spirit as he wouldn't have believed her capable of such wanton destruction; but underneath her fragile façade lay a monster more dreadful than any he had known. He guessed that she harbored some sort of deep-seated grudge against the lemur people from the merciless way in which she attacked them, as though endless wrath was flooding from her heart with every action.

Madagascar's citizens were outnumbering the Harpies, but Clemson had magic on his side; it took less than an hour until all the parties involved were ready to capitulate.

He could almost feel death radiating across the terrain, and for a short moment he wondered if he had gone too far… He had killed so many animals in such short time; at the witch's side he had trampled through their blood and besmeared himself with it, willingly and with full consent – however, his doubts vanished just as quickly as they had appeared, and the whole of him said _yes._ This was _all_ he had wanted – except from one more thing…

He left the window and looked around the place, where Faraday and some of the Harpies were preparing his official coronation ceremony. He was very satisfied with their success; but he felt he really needed to settle things straight with Seven now about undoing Mea's sacrifice. The mere thought of it made him experience it all over again in quick phantom pangs – the ritual she had performed had scared him more than anything in his life ever had, scared him more than death itself, and not even the things she was doing for him now could take that away. Even now the memory of it shot to the core of his body like a bolt of ice lightning.

 _It's just temporary,_ he told himself, realizing that he'd already been doing so all day long, _The moment I'll ask her for it, she'll bring him back in no time. It's logical; just like he said –_ _in any case we'll be together again after all…_

However, the young witch was nowhere around; she still had to be down in the jungle.

"Everyone is assembled now for your speech, King Clemson," Faraday then declared; and Clemson wanted to ask him to wait for Seven, wanted her to make things right again first, wanted Mea present when he was crowned… But the kings of the different animal tribes had already assembled on the forest clearing in front of the castle where the Harpies had driven them, so he felt he couldn't stall this important event any longer.

He stepped out on the balcony overlooking the clearing and faced the animals on the glade below; from each different tribe living on this island there were nearly a hundred assembled.

" _Silence!_ " He raised his fist high in the air, his shout deafening them. He was actually speaking to the assembled men and women in a normal voice, but Faraday was amplifying it with magic so it would reach even the most distant animal on the island.

Complete silence fell at once.

"Citizens of Madagascar," he began, his voice booming over the crowd, "You must surrender to me." He moved closer to the edge of the balcony on which he stood, a hundred feet above the assembled animals, waving his paw at the army of Harpies – _his_ army!

"I have amassed an army of creatures whose strength you have just witnessed, a strength superior to any animal's," his magically amplified voice rocked the forest clearing, "I'm convinced you see that no amount of daring and ingenuity can conquer an enemy whose resources are so vastly superior to your own; every single one of them is stronger than your strongest warrior. If you continue refusing, this fight will ultimately come down to very simple terms – animal against supernatural being –, and in the final balance the stronger force will be victor and the weaker one will be dead." He leaned a little further over the marble railing, his grin turning into a crooked grimace. "– You do understand, right? You have absolutely no chance of winning. This isn't even going to be a fight. It's just you, sitting there at the bottom of a well, and looking up at the stones thrown down at you."

With a grin he watched how they froze in front of him like prey in the gaze of a predator.

"So – in keeping with tradition, I, Clemson, the victor and new supreme king of the lemurs – oho, that sounds good! –, will offer you, the vanquished, your lives, if you abdicate your crowns and swear your eternal loyalty to me! – I order you to confirm your compliance right now. Refusal to do so will result in your obliteration."

He paused, letting the words sink in. "If you test me, you will die."

There was a slight unrest among the assembled, but on facing the Harpies who had proven that they were ready to bring total destruction to anyone who would disobey Clemson's wishes there was no way they would've dared to risk a repeat of the previous battle. Then the Crocodile Ambassador stepped ahead sullenly, taking his tiny red crown off his head, ready to hand it over to the new ruler of Madagascar.

Slowly, one after the other, the other kings came forward to follow his example.

* * *

Outside his tree house the world seemed to be going down. From his window he could see palm trees burn, and there was a tumult of angry and warlike yells; and then from the depths of the woods went out such a tremulous and prolonged wail of mournful fear and utter despair as if Madagascar itself was crying, as if this was the last cry of hope emanating from the very core of the dying island.

Mort smiled at the sound. It didn't matter to him. He lived in his own world.

When the world outside became too bad, he just imagined a song creeping into his head and waited until he heard the tune escape his lips in a soft hum. Pretty soon he found himself singing it aloud then, and so he did now – this time it was a child lemurs' rhyme that had been sung to him long ago. It made reality melt away... for a time at least.

He faced away from the window, feeling that if he just kept singing, he wouldn't know any of the terrible things that were going on out there. There was no fear in him; smiling, he began to set out his tubes of paints, savoring the familiar surge of joy that never failed to appear when he sorted through the rainbow of colors. He was going to paint the tea party he'd set up with his stuffed white bunny and the King Julien dummy.

The white plush bunny was looking at him from across the table. He wasn't hungry, didn't want any cookies today. He just stared ahead in his general direction. Just as Mort dipped his brush into a wash of bright white to start painting his ever-smiling face, the door flew open – the light of the burning jungle was very bright behind it, blinding him for a moment so that all he could see was a dark, slender silhouette.

"You! Why aren't you at the glade yet?" a female voice yelled at him angrily, in a very commanding tone.

"Uh... why should I be there?" he asked, guessing it was Clover.

"Because the king is going to deliver a speech there soon and everyone is to listen to him!"

Mort pouted. "But I was just getting ready to paint..."

"You dare contradict me? – Don't you know who I am?!" His visitor stepped into the light – it wasn't Clover but a lemur girl with black fur he didn't know.

"Uhm… no, I don't."

"I am the Golden Lemur!" she announced theatrically, "A witch more fearsome and deadly than Larry himself!"

He smiled. "And my name is Mort. It's nice to meet you, Golden –." Just then something tugged at his mind, and his eyes went wide with surprise. "– Wait, are you… are you the one they call Seven? Seven the Golden Lemur?!"

Her expression turned into a wicked grin, and a gleam flashed across her yellow eyes.

" _Now_ you are afraid of me, aren't you!"

"Afraid? No, why would I be? I've always dreamed of meeting you, Seven!"

– The little mouse lemur gazed up at the witch with shining eyes. "I love all the spooky bedtime stories I've ever heard about ghosts and witches! You know, the older lemurs actually told us these stories to frighten us and warn us against the danger of using magic, but I always loved magic and couldn't get enough of them… especially when they were about you. They say you haunt the old castle no one dares to visit, and you can walk through walls and turn into golden butterflies and do just about anything with your magical powers – this is so amazing!" He chuckled. "Of course I didn't dare say so in front of the others, but deep in my heart I always hoped to meet you one day – and now you're _here!_ " He wrapped his arms around himself and tipped his head back, his eyes going wide and soft as they met hers. "– I can't believe it. I really can't. It's like a dream come true!"

The witch narrowed her eyes, scrutinizing him silently for a moment. "You're… a bit weird, aren't you."

But Mort had already run off in the next room, where a finished painting stood on an easel, and got it to show her his work. "Look, I've even done a portrait of you once, and I hoped so much that I could show it to you one day! Do you like it?"

He held the painting out to her for inspection and was happy to see her angry expression soften a bit.

"I do. That's… really good, actually." She studied the beautifully painted portrait in watercolor that showed her own face and some golden butterflies in the background, and Mort studied her as she did so; and even though he hadn't recognized her before, in the dim light of the candles he clearly saw the girl of the portrait now, not in the same attitude, not with the same expression, but on the same height of beauty as that on which he'd caught her in the painting. In reality, he thought, she was even more brilliant; there was something about her, new and attractive, which was not in the portrait.

– "Really, that's quite impressive. I'd like to learn that, too!" she said, her anger of two minutes ago suddenly almost completely vanished. Mort nodded eagerly.

"I'm soon going to make a landscape painting of my home tree before autumn comes and the leaves fall off. You could join me, if you like; then I can show you how it works."

"Oh, I'd love to! Is painting your hobby?"

"Uhuh." He nodded. "Have you ever tried it out?"

"No, it never occurred to me," she said but seemed to change her mind quickly when Mort led her into the living room and she saw his paint buckets stacked in the corner, ten gallons in different colors, with the brushes and rollers and stir sticks right there.

Mort opened one can for her; the color inside was luscious, a blue of the ocean. He opened another one, a deep crimson; the third, a rich honey yellow.

Seven gazed at the colors, her eyes wide and curious.

Mort picked up a paintbrush, brand-new and thick, with shiny bristles that gleamed in the light of the candle on the tabletop, and handed it to her. She hesitated but then took it from him; she ran the bristles over the palm of her paw, and the stroke and the tickle there made her draw in a sharp breath and shiver. Then she dipped the brush into the rich paint and held it above the can, watching the color run off in ropes, creamy and thick, and the beauty of watching it loop back into the can brought a bright, genuine smile across her face.

Mort then showed her some of his other paintings, and all his sketchbooks, too, and before they knew it they'd spent a lot of time sitting on the sofa and going through all of them. At some point Mort realized that he hadn't even asked her yet what she'd actually come for; however, she didn't seem all too interested in it now, so it didn't seem to matter so much.

"Do you want to stay for dinner?" Mort invited her then as it was very late when they had finally turned the last page of the last book.

"No, thanks. I really have to leave now, and –."

"Oh, come on, have some cheese with me! – Here, it's really good!" – Mort offered her a slice of cheese, and she seemed to like it very much and agreed to stay after all.

– "So, where do you come from, Seven?" he asked when they were sitting in his kitchen together a little later eating more cheese and kumquats, "I mean, you sure haven't always been a ghost, have you?"

She stared through the window next to their chairs, and suddenly her face was dark and troubled. "No… No, I haven't."

She put her fork down, looking unhappy and like she didn't want to say more, so he quickly asked instead, "Is it true what they say – can you glow in the dark and walk through walls and all that?"

"Well, technically, yes." She gave him an amused look. "But why would I do that? My castle has a door, you know."

Mort giggled. "Oh, but it must be so much fun! Can you teach me that?"

"No, I don't think I can do that. After all, you're not a ghost."

"You don't really look like one, either."

"Well, I have a solid form again now, so… I'm not a real ghost anymore. It's probably hard to distinguish me from a normal lemur now," she explained, "And for me it's quite a weird feeling actually… I've been without a body for so long – and suddenly I have sensation again!" She took the brush Mort had given her earlier and ran a finger over the bristles again.

"– Suddenly it's all there again… the sensation of that brush, the taste of the kumquats, the scent of the sea and the caress of the wind on my fur when I'm outside…"

Mort smiled. "I'm happy for you. I'd sure be sad it if I couldn't feel all this!"

After dinner he showed Seven a little more of his hut.

"You play the organ, too?" she asked with surprise when she discovered the small yellow home organ in his bedroom, "I have one in my castle, too, you know. It's a bit bigger than this one, though, and it has many silver pipes. My servant Faraday gives me lessons sometimes. He's a real master at it, but I'm not that good."

"Oh, me neither. I'm much better at playing the saxophone! Do you want to hear a song?"

– He ran to get his instrument case, but when he came back she was standing at the window and looking outside, and suddenly she seemed very uneasy.

"Look, I can't stay any longer now; I really have to go. I still got something very important to do. – A little lemur like you won't make any trouble, huh…," she murmured, more to herself than to Mort, "So I guess it's okay if you just stay here."

The little mouse lemur looked up at her with big sad eyes. "Oh, it's a pity you're leaving so soon! Because I love visitors… I'm a bit lonely sometimes since my former roommate moved out. Are you coming back?"

She nodded eagerly. "Yes, I'd love to join you when you make that painting of your home tree… is that okay?"

He gave her a beaming smile that grew even brighter when she gave his hair an affectionate ruffle. "Sure! See you then, Seven."

"Oh, can I keep the brush?"

"Of course." – A moment later Seven was dashing down his tree, and Mort stood in the porch of his hut watching her leave.

He didn't mind the bloodstains on her cloak that was flapping loosely behind her.

He didn't pay attention to the burning jungle around him.

Humming his little rhyme, he waved happily after the witch until she was gone.

* * *

 **NEW YORK, PRESENT DAY**

10,000 feet below Skipper's plane the penguin team's second-in-command narrowed his eyes, guessing his leader was in real trouble. He was about to settle in on the designated runway but then changed his mind – there was an explosive blast from the _Maverick II_ 's afterburners, and then she roared right over the meadow without touching. Startled witless, Rico and Private leapt out of the way the last possible moment as Kowalski came barreling in on them and then watched in disbelief as his plane sheared off, rocketing back into the sky.

From above Kowalski watched how the two of them immediately climbed back into their aircrafts to be able to continue talking to him over the plane-to-plane frequency. Rico yelled a curse at him, nearly blowing his eardrums – the unexpected maneuver had earned the rogue penguin some burned tail feathers – and then there was Private's voice, too.

" _Uh… Kowalski, where are you going?!_ " he asked sheepishly.

"Helping Skipper in," Kowalski said. His voice was calmness itself.

" _But you don't have the fuel for this anymore!_ " – In the background Rico, too, growled his protest. Kowalski ignored them.

"You guys can see both our planes from below there, can't you? So just guide me to him."

" _Alright… He's now at your six o'clock_ ," Private answered hopelessly, " _You're about 2000 feet below him._ "

"Roger that."

Kowalski pushed the throttles forward to maximum power. The _Maverick II_ soared straight up, wings pressed back in the maximum position for thrust, and in seconds the two planes were up there together in the eerie, calm blue sky. Kowalski pulled up alongside Skipper's wing. "You're running on fumes, Skipper. You've got to put it down."

His voice was sharp and clear and urgent. For a moment there was no reply.

" _This is crazy_ ," he then heard Skipper's voice over his earphones, " _My instruments are going crazy, Kowalski. There's no way I could've heard them from that distance…!_ "

Kowalski frowned, wondering what he meant, but there was no time for this now. "Your instruments are fine, Skipper." Kowalski was talking calmly, calmly, calmly into his microphone while on the dashboard before him the fuel tank read empty, red light blinking violently. "It must be vertigo or something; that's all there's to it."

" _Put it down now, guys, please! You must be both near out of fuel!_ " That was Private again; there was a hint of panic in the rookie's voice.

"Private's right, Skipper. Stay on my wing. I'll lead the way."

" _It was them, Kowalski. I know it. I heard it! But that's impossible...! What the hell is going on here?!_ " Skipper's voice sounded flat and almost emotionless, as if simply describing a scientific phenomenon that had occurred a billion light years away somewhere.

Kowalski had no idea what he was talking about; the two planes were cruising the sky at 20,000 feet now, canopy-to-canopy, close enough for eye contact, the _Maverick I_ upside down and the _Maverick II_ right side up. But Skipper wasn't looking at Kowalski; he was staring straight ahead at the heads-up display on his windshield.

Kowalski shook his head; he couldn't stand seeing his leader so distraught, so frantically disorganized in a moment that required his full attention!

"What on earth is wrong with you, Skipper?! You've got to listen to me! Half-roll her and follow me! _Now!_ "

Finally, as if responding automatically, the _Maverick I_ rolled over, and the two planes, both straight and level now, began the descent. Skipper was following Kowalski's instructions, coasting as much as possible to hang onto some gas for his set-down. With Kowalski flying ahead, the _Maverick II_ came in to settle down first; just as trained, the scientist penguin used the last part of the altitude very accurately to maneuver the plane onto the runway. As soon as it had come to a complete stop he shut his engines down and leapt out to join Rico and Private, and together they tried to help Skipper in, hopping and waving their flippers in wide arcs to show him the angle at which he was supposed to set down.

Skipper had almost made it – but just as he was about to extract the landing gear, a fierce wind shear drove the _Maverick I_ suddenly downward.

" _Watch out!_ " Kowalski yelled – they frantically scattered to throw themselves out of the way as their leader came in. The _Maverick I_ settled, standing on her engines for an interminable moment, while Skipper tried desperately to arrest her downward momentum. Sparks flew as her underbody skidded across the grass and then slammed hard onto the meadow – her back wheel crunched out immediately and bumped over to the side. The gear screeched and collapsed.

Finally the plane came to a halt in a cloud of fuel vapor and steam.

The three other penguins belly-slid up to the seething mass, crying out their leader's name.

Kowalski leapt up the ladder to peer into the cockpit; Rico and Private scrambled up seconds behind him.

"Skipper! Skipper, can you hear me?!" Kowalski hit the canopy release, and the Plexiglas bubble popped open.

Skipper sat stunned in his seat, motionless, his eyes widened. He seemed paralyzed, passive, as though he was in deep shock. They grabbed him by the flippers and dragged him out of the plane, and he very nearly collapsed between them on the grass.

"Madagascar," he gasped, "We need to go to Madagascar. Right away."


	7. Chapter 6 - Viva Clemson

CHAPTER 6

 **VIVA CLEMSON**

* * *

 **MADAGASCAR, PRESENT DAY**

As Clemson stepped away from the ledge and back inside the castle, he was surprised to spot Seven amid the crowd of Harpies assembled there. He motioned for Faraday to stop the magic that amplified his voice and went to speak quietly to her alone. She made a strange sight the way she stood before him, with the baobab leaves of her dress stained with blood and a used paintbrush in her paw.

"Where have you been?" he asked, frowning, "You missed my speech!"

"I'm sorry. I was just, uh… making sure everything went to your wishes, Your Majesty."

He nodded. "Listen, you've done great work. But there is one more thing I need to ask from you…"

"Oh, but let's crown you first, shall we!" She took him by the wrist and led him out of the room, going ahead with a light step. The Harpies followed them in a long cortege. "Come, come – everything is prepared for the coronation ceremony!"

Their procession moved out into the corridors and up a couple of stairs, and unlike the first time he'd entered this castle Clemson now found the corridors all well alit, adorned with polished marble and alabaster figures. Two Harpies stood guard before the entrance door of what he was told would be the throne room. It was the same room where he had met Seven for the first time, but when he came inside now, everything was of marble and gold, and there were many curtains with great golden tassels. In front of him was a throne of gold and diamonds, a sight more glorious than he could have ever imagined. Several Harpies were forming a guard of honor beside a long red carpet leading all the way to it; on each side of the carpet stood six of them in a row, each one a head shorter than the other.

When he knelt down in front of the throne, all eyes were fixed upon him – in a moment a hush fell everywhere, and Clemson swallowed hard; the chandelier light, which had seemed dim, suddenly felt too bright.

One of the Harpies respectfully handed Seven a bejeweled scepter with some bead work surrounding the upper part of the staff and a gilded figure attached to its top, which had the shape of a one-winged butterfly. After she had received that scepter, she laid the tip of it on Clemson's shoulder and spoke: "I hereby declare you, Clemson, to be the new King of Madagascar, and the greatest monarch of all animalhood!"

– The instant that Seven made this proclamation, everything was engulfed with sparkles of gold and white light as the glow of countless butterflies lit the room. She lowered a golden crown that was encrusted with brilliants and carbuncles of every color and adorned with gorgeous blue peacock feathers on top upon the bowed head of the kneeling king.

"Come, raise your face. Stand and accept this scepter, King Clemson."

Clemson stood up dizzily and took the scepter from Seven's paw, his own trembling slightly.

"I… I am most grateful…"

And as soon as he grasped the scepter he was wrapped up in that brilliant sparkle of gold, as though butterflies were flowing out from inside him. At the same instant he felt something in the depths of his soul being reborn… it was energy, energy with a gold color. It felt like he was waking up, as though he'd been half asleep since he'd been born and was opening his eyes for the first time in his life.

"Come, show yourself to all of these people! Show them that you are now the new king!"

Clemson, the new King of Madagascar, turned around timidly, and when he did, the witch's minions which filled the vast throne room honored him with an applause that sounded like the roar of the sea.

"To Clemson, the great emperor, long life and victory!" they called out, over and over.

Seven then introduced her servants, which were also Clemson's, to him personally one more time. "You already know Count Faraday. He is a reliable man. If you speak to him of anything that confuses you in your new days as a king, he should be able to help you."

The old servant nodded at him but didn't say anything; then he slowly backed out of the room with a bow.

"Your Majesty, please greet us as well." – The Harpies were gathered in a line before Clemson. One of them took a step forward and knelt before him.

"Ah… I'm pleased to meet you… and thank you for all you've done for me before."

"Those creatures are demons who I summoned to serve me, and they will keep on serving you as well, of course, the way they did before," said Seven, "They aren't very smart, but they're dependable… a villainous group. You've already seen that they do their job quite well. Have them do whatever you wish."

"We will always be by the king's side!" exclaimed the Harpy who was kneeling before him, "Please, Your Majesty, do not hesitate to order us anything you desire; we will certainly show that we can accomplish our task!"

– Still too stunned for words, Clemson nodded his appreciation eagerly.

Even after that, various other Harpies came ahead to speak to the new king and offered him words of congratulation. As he responded to them confusedly, he felt as if he was getting a bit light-headed, as if he couldn't quite tell whether all this was real or unreal. But there was one thing that was unquestionably true about this whole event: the sense of achievement at being finally able to call himself the King of Madagascar.

That alone was a truth he could definitely understand.

And, finally realizing that his one great dream had come true, he was suddenly so happy and proud just to be there among the supernatural, all of them so jubilant, dancing and cheering all around him, and Seven was smiling up at him, eyes shining with joy – he felt the urge to embrace her and thank her for everything, and he didn't hesitate to do so. She smiled even wider and hugged him back with a tight squeeze… held him captive with a touch that froze something deep inside him. All of a sudden everything fell away, and it was just the two of them, bound together – Seven whispered something into his ear, but all he could hear was his own blood rushing though his brain at breakneck speed. The closeness of her body overwhelmed his senses – he knew those loving paws, their gentle touch, but it wasn't her, it wasn't her –! It was _Mea_ in his mind, sliding in and around every other thought.

He was touching Mea. Through her. As if she _was_ him.

Clemson could feel the color drain from his face. She had sacrificed him to take his body; only now did he realize what this meant. He stepped back and let go of her, as if he'd touched hot coals. She leaned back with a very confused look on her face.

Clemson swallowed hard a few times. The vivid chatter of the celebration seemed suddenly very far away, very unreal.

"Seven… Seven, listen," he murmured, "Listen, I have something of great importance to ask you _–_ a great favor to beg of you, and I beg you for it with all my heart."

He sat down on one of the stairs leading up to the dais where his throne stood so their faces were on the same eye level. "You must bring me Mea back." – Her eyebrows rose in question. – "The one who came with me… the one you sacrificed. You must revive him with your powers."

Her eyes went wide until she grasped the meaning.

"But that's not possible," she said then, slowly.

"I'll make sure you're well paid for your services. I'll get you a different lemur to sacrifice!"

The witch shook her head. "It's not about that. My alliance with you offers me a chance to go back to the Light World and have revenge on the lemurs there who despised me when I was alive. I've wished for that to happen for a long time; you owe me nothing else."

Clemson nodded. "Nevertheless I must insist that you bring Mea back to me!"

Seven was looking at him contemplatively, either like an artist considering a work in progress or like a spider checking out its victim wrapped in silky threads, he wasn't quite sure which. "It's impossible," she said, "I consumed him, and now he's gone."

– He didn't like the sound of that; he didn't like it at all.

"You see, I am a ghost," she explained him once more as she sat down beside him, "Before you came to me, I didn't have a body like I had when I was alive; my soul had been separated from it. The form I had before you gave this new body to me wasn't solid; it was just a faded remnant of what I once was... like the remaining shadow of a solid object which no longer exists. But just like a shadow can't hurt you, my magical powers wouldn't have had any effect at all, had I attacked the animals out there in my ghost form; that's why I needed that lemur's body, the physical part of his being, in order to materialize again."

"Yeah, I got that," he interrupted her impatiently, "And I told you I will get you another mortal's body in return –."

"And then what was I to do? Even if you did this, I couldn't bring that lemur back! Don't you understand? He doesn't have a body anymore; his body is now mine. The ritual to meld my soul and his body together has been performed, and it can't be reversed – his soul is gone!"

Clemson swallowed hard. "Then... then what about Mea?" His voice was tight, the tendons in his neck pronounced. "Is he a ghost now, too?"

"No. When the ritual was over, his soul has passed on into the Shadow World right away. Once separated from the body, the soul of an animal cannot stay behind on its own; only by magic can you keep your soul from passing there. And he was not a sorcerer, obviously."

– Her lips curled into a dry, derisive smile. – "Maybe he'd better thought again before mocking me the way he did and started believing in magic after all before agreeing to this!"

Clemson stared at her as her words shook something deep inside him. He started to nod, and then the meaning of what she'd said registered. Mea was gone. Really gone. _Dead_.

Fear, rose, crested, and broke over him. Suddenly the whole throne room chilled as if the flames burning in the fireplace had been blown out by a sudden icy gush of wind.

"But there must be a way…!" He took her firmly by the shoulders, forcing her to look at him. "There must be! Seven, you have to bring him back! You have to do this for me –!" He leaned in closer, green eyes narrowing furiously. "When I agreed to that alliance, you said your magic could do anything for me, anything at all! And you've sworn to fulfill my every wish – so do as you promised!"

She watched him for a few moments, her eyes flickering between his as if she was unable to understand his agitation and trying hard to figure out what it was about. "Well, technically there is a way... maybe, after all..." She flashed him a look of angry indignation. "– But you should know better than to ask me for this!"

With these words she jumped to her feet and, right in front of his eyes, exploded into a shower of gold.

"Hey, where are you going?! _Wait!_ " – Clemson's paw reached out to the empty air.

Just then he heard a soft chuckle behind him and a deep voice said, "Milady gets easily irritated when being confronted with this issue."

He swung around, a startled cry catching in his throat. Behind him stood the tall, slender figure of the witch's head servant leaning against the back of his throne, a coconut cocktail in his paw. The older lemur had obviously been listening in on their whole conversation; he stared at Clemson, a strange look of both amusement and distance in his eyes.

"With what issue?" the red lemur asked, trying to hide his startled response under a cool, level voice. Faraday approached him.

"Does Milord know how ghosts come to exist?" he asked in return.

"Not really. Before I met Seven, I always thought they were summoned or something. Just like them." – He waved a paw toward the back of the room at the chattering, vivacious crowd of Harpies assembled there.

"The Harpies? They aren't ghosts. They are demons."

"Well, that's the difference? Aren't both supernatural beings?"

Faraday shook his head slowly. "A demon is a creature with origins in another realm. It can be summoned into this world by witchcraft. A ghost is the spirit of a being who once lived here in this world… in the _Light World_ , if you understand, Milord." – Clemson nodded, remembering the grimoire he and Mea had read. – "Since she is probably not going to do this herself, I might as well tell you about this," said Faraday.

Clemson got up, and they walked along the red carpet next to each other.

"Seven was once a lemur just like you. Back when she was alive, in the Light World, she was taught witchcraft. Like many young sorcerers she was tempted by the world of magic that opened up to her, by her new powers… tempted to eventually learn and cast the mightiest spell known to any sorcerer. It is called the 'Shadow Spell'… the spell to control life and death at will. Once you've gained that power, you can be with the dead at any time… and you can rejoin with the living if needed; you can just walk between the Light and the Shadow World as you please. They say that once you've learned that you can do this at any time by simply snapping your fingers, all nonsense spoken in the world of animals becomes a mere howl of the wind that isn't worth listening to."

The old servant shrugged his shoulders slightly and adjusted his monocle. "– Too bad no one has ever proven that true yet."

"That means Seven… she didn't succeed back then?"

Faraday raised one eyebrow at the question. "If she had, she wouldn't be a ghost now."

Clemson frowned, not sure what he meant.

– "You see, a ghost isn't a being that's meant to exist by nature. By nature's law, the body and soul of an animal aren't separate entities; they're melded together inextricably. One can't be separate from the other… unless you start using magic on yourself, like you have to do when trying to make yourself immortal with that so-called Shadow Spell."

Faraday took out a pen and a folded leaf that had been poking out of the breast pocket of his tuxedo and drew two overlapping circles on it. "Imagine these circles to be the Light World and the Shadow World. An animal can usually be only in either of them – for an animal is either alive or dead. But this part here, the Intermediate World…" – He scribbled harshly, shading in the intersection of the circles. – "…is not meant to be accessed by animals; in fact it is not meant to exist at all. It's a kind of half-state, not there but not 'not there' either – a state you'd perhaps refer to as _undead_. It's the state of a spirit without a body… a ghost."

Clemson looked at the drawing, his mind only slowly grasping the meaning of this.

"So… that means Seven turned into a ghost after she's tried out the Shadow Spell…?"

"That is correct. Her witch teacher warned her several times, but she insisted she had to try out this spell; she was convinced she'd become adept enough in the knowledge of magic to conjure it up successfully. And so she tried it, very much against her teacher's will. However, the spell was too mighty for her to handle; it ripped her body and soul apart when she cast it. Her body died instantly; her soul lived on in a ghost form, no longer able to be anything more than a breath of wind in the Light World, yet unable to pass on into the Shadow World… doomed to be trapped forever between these two worlds. – That is, until you have come and bestowed a new body upon her, of course."

"Yes, but she can't keep that body." Clemson rubbed his paws together, thoroughly pondering everything he'd just learned. – "What if this spell were performed successfully? What if she actually managed to exceed the boundaries between the mortal world and the netherworld – then her soul could be reunited with her own body… and Mea could be reunited with his!"

Faraday nodded. "If your goal is to bring this lemur back from the dead, this spell would be the only way… the very only way. However –."

"Then she's got to do it. She's got to repeat that spell and do it properly this time!"

The older lemur stroked his moustache thoughtfully for a few seconds, with his eyes looking right through Clemson. "I don't know if that's possible. As you see, Milady has lost quite a lot due to this spell, so I am not sure –."

"I _will_ make it!" a gruff voice called out from nowhere, cutting him short. A moment later Seven reappeared right in front of Clemson, popping up out of a burst of golden light. Startled, he jumped back, almost colliding with Faraday. Then he saw that the witch was holding the grimoire in her paws he and Mea had gotten from Morocco. Heat was staining her cheeks with a blush, but there was an expression of resolute determination in her eyes that was bound to succeed.

"I'm sorry, King Clemson. I was just… never mind. It is true that I have endured much pain after my first failure which, after all, cost me my life…" One could hear from her voice that she loathed how fragile the memory still made her feel; yet she drew a deep breath and continued, "But I've become more experienced during my time as a ghost, and I'm ready to try it once more! I'll prove to you, King Clemson, that I'm the witch I claim to be – the mightiest witch of all, the very first animal to succeed in conjuring up a spell no one has ever yet managed to cast!"

Faraday's bushy brows furrowed. "Are you sure you want to risk this, Milady? You know that some even say that no animal will ever be able to do this because this spell is forbidden by the Sky Gods themselves –!"

"Don't listen to him." Clemson went up to the witch and put his arm around her shoulders, turning her away from the servant. Suddenly he knew how he had to talk to her, offering her exactly the words and emotions that she burned for.

– "What you say sounds very reasonable to me. This spell is obviously very difficult, so there's no need to regret not having made it initially. I'm sure you've practiced a lot in the meantime; there's no reason why you shouldn't succeed this time! And you _do_ want to show every lemur out there who doubted you what a great witch you are, don't you?"

"I absolutely do, Your Majesty!" Seven clenched her paws into fists, her eyes shining with pride. Clemson smiled to himself; now he had won her over, and she had let herself be carried away with the intoxicating memories of the past that clouded any better judgment. No matter how much it would yet cost her to execute this spell, she would do it for him.

"So how do we go about this?"

"The Shadow Spell requires very much energy and therefore special ingredients, of which we have only one so far," Seven explained as she took the scepter from him and reached out for the one-winged butterfly statuette on its top. The butterfly's antenna – a long curved rod with a round ball on the end – came loose when she pulled at it, and she handed the little ball to Clemson. When she did so, Faraday held a paw out as if to stop her but didn't say a word. Scrutinizing it with awe, Clemson held the pearl in his paw, where it shimmered with a bluish glow.

"This is a Moon Pearl," the witch explained, "There are seven of them in total, hidden somewhere here on the island. Find them and you have the ingredients needed for the Shadow Spell. After years of searching I had finally managed to collect them all, but when I tried the spell for the first time, they got scattered all across the island again during the process... except for this one here. But I'm convinced that in the meantime the other citizens of Madagascar must have found them... and since you're king of the whole island now, you can simply order them to turn them over to us!"

Clemson thought that over again and then nodded approvingly. "Yes. If this is what you need to repeat the spell, then that's exactly what we shall do. – Faraday!"

"Milord?"

Clemson pointed toward the balcony where he'd just delivered his speech to announce himself as the new supreme ruler of Madagascar. "Go out there again and tell them about the Moon Pearls; tell them to look for them anywhere on the island."

"But, Milord..."

"Hurry up, Faraday; there's no time to waste!" Seven waved him off with an annoyed flap of her paw. "Tell everybody to pair off and fan out into every direction. If they are successful, they are to hand the pearls over to King Clemson immediately as instructed by his order."

– Savoring every word she spoke, Clemson added slowly, darkly, "Yes, and tell them also that if they refuse, they will die, one after another, until we have all of these pearls together!"

Faraday adjusted his monocle again and regarded the two younger lemurs through it – speculatively or sadly or politely-wearily, Clemson couldn't quite tell which – and then bowed and walked away, ears drooping, slouching more than usual.

"Yes, Milord," they heard him sigh.

Clemson watched the old servant leave with narrowed eyes. Something definitely felt off about him, but he couldn't exactly pinpoint what it was. However, for reasons he couldn't quite name, he liked him less and less.


	8. Chapter 7 - Pitch-Black

CHAPTER 7

 **PITCH-BLACK**

The following night Clemson found no sleep.

Too much had happened in such a short time, and his life had changed so drastically.

To think that magic had done all this for him – a day ago he hadn't even really believed in magic at all!

Odd, disjointed images of the day floated past his eyes, his memories of everything that had happened to him fragmented, with different slivers moving away and reappearing, like a mirror shattering in slow motion. He turned restlessly on the bed in his royal sleeping chamber; just like the throne room, this room was adorned with silver and gold and all the most valuable jewels known to a lemur. His bed was made with the finest silk sheets the color of dark red roses, and the pillows were as white as freshly fallen snow, and each of them was engraved with the purest gold threads. But all this luxury didn't help much to ease his mind's turmoil; his nerves were too taut. His mind, freed of any linear order, floated past all that had happened lately and back to the first meeting with Seven.

As soon as he closed his eyes he could hear Mea screaming again, screaming for help, screaming his name – chills raced through him, filled him with a cold that wormed its way into his very bones.

He'd been gone for too long now.

Gritting his teeth against the sting of remorse, he felt a sudden rush of anger at Seven – why wasn't she a more competent witch, couldn't just bring him back? If he had known that in advance –! But this time she would surely manage to cast the spell successfully.

The single candle that was still burning on his nightstand cast yawning shadows; the corners of the room, swathed in darkness, retreated into a distant mysterious gloom.

He blew out the candle – the little bit of life that had still remained, huddled about the candlelight, died out as well. Pitch-black darkness engulfed him. The whole room seemed suddenly yanked out of the beautiful present and pulled back into the forlorn state the castle had been in when he and Mea had arrived here for the first time. He cast himself back among his pillows and prayed that sleep would come soon.

But it didn't. The darkness pressed in – the quiet, the strange noises in the unfamiliar blackness, the groaning of the old boards. He had to listen to a dozen incomprehensible noises and trace each one to its source. He had to dissect a score of vague shadows, hulking, threatening shapes, and determine the reality of each. He looked and looked until the room was alive with swirling shadowy figures his peering eyes had carved out of the darkness, products of visual fatigue. And he told himself as much, but each new shape looked more real than the last. They were but waiting for him to close his eyes, to come plunging down on him.

No, he would remain awake all night. He did not dare close his eyes in sleep.

His last conversation with Seven came back to his mind; more thoughts, more questions arose in a tumult and harried him. Once again he thought about the Shadow Spell.

 _A spell forbidden by the Sky Gods… a spell no animal has ever succeeded in conjuring up._

Wasn't it rather highly unlikely that of all the sorcerers in this world this lemur girl, who didn't seem to be such an experienced witch after all, would make it then? Would they actually manage to retrieve all seven of the Moon Pearls after all? And what would happen if they didn't – or if the witch failed again? Would Mea be forever gone –?

Suddenly he began to wonder if he'd made some sort of mistake, and he could feel the pang of a panic attack in his chest. His breathing started to shorten, and he willed his shaking paws to steady. But no, how could it be a mistake – how could he even think so? Everything that had happened had served to make him king!

And this was, after all, everything that mattered.

The night dragged on. Finally a finger of dull sunlight shone through a gap in the curtains; the first gloomy dawn began to brighten the room. The light was a relief to him, and his mind rested enough to allow him a few hours of fitful, restless sleep. But as soon as he awoke, staring at the ceiling with swollen, puffy eyes, he began asking himself the same questions. He sat up in his bed, pulled up his knees, and rested his aching head against them.

This was his life now: he was the King of Madagascar.

And Mea was gone.

But he would get him back.

He would.

* * *

Leaning over the log fence, Julien let is gaze glide over the battlefield, like a bird in flight. Even though the fight had ended, he still heard faint screams in the distance and, if he strained his ears, he could also hear the victorious battle cries of the terrible creatures that had inflicted more terror, pain, and destruction upon the island than anyone had in all the years he'd been living here. When he carefully peered through the thick, fleshy leaves of the trees he could watch them circle lazily over the besieged lemur village. Columns of black smoke rose above the treetops. The gruesome scene reminded him of a graveyard, with broken weapons serving as makeshift markers to savaged bodies buried under heaps of splintered and broken bones and bloody viscera.

Julien turned his face away, gasping for breath – in that horrible moment, he felt the full extent of failure.

As a king, he knew, he wasn't only expected to host great parties but also – in situations like these – to ensure the welfare of the kingdom and all his subjects. He was obliged to protect those who had no means of protection, to provide safety to each and every lemur – now, he felt he had thoroughly and utterly failed to do so.

He had disappointed his people – even his closest friends.

They had gathered Clover's frozen body from the beach and taken her into to Karl's territory, where they'd laid her down next to a small log fire, hoping that the hot air would defrost her. But it wouldn't happen. The block of ice enclosing her had been conjured up through a spell, and it wouldn't melt naturally – they could've probably thrown her into a volcano and it wouldn't have helped one bit.

They wondered if Masikura, who seemed to be surprisingly adept with magic as well, wouldn't actually be able to make it right. However, the chameleon lady was nowhere to be found, no matter how often Julien called for her. After she'd performed the spell which would help them call the penguins from here, she had just vanished – Julien remembered the grief in her voice when she'd spoken the last words of the spell, a grief so deep that he'd wanted to break the circle and give her a hug, but then she'd already disappeared.

He must have let her down, too. They all cared for him so much – and he hadn't even been able to protect the ones closest and dearest to him.

A while ago Maurice had left to gather more logs from the border of the forest that was still inside Karl's territory; by the time he returned, he was carrying enough wood to last through the night. His king was still lost in thought and worry as he came ahead to add them to the fire.

"Forgive me," Julien said softly, unable to meet his advisor's gaze. "Please. Forgive me."

"Forgive you…?" Maurice looked over to him, frowning; he put the rest of the logs down and then moved to sit by Julien's side. He leaned over to draw the younger lemur into his embrace, and Julien hugged him back. It felt so relieving to be in his arms, and he clung to him and began sobbing, his body wracked with tears, not realizing how much he'd held in, how upset he was. Now he could let it all go.

"Forgive me," he murmured again, taking hold of Maurice's paws, "Forgive me for failing you like this… all of you! I'm not worthy of being called your king… My kingdom has fallen; I've lost my crown. And, worst of all – I failed to protect my people, Maurice; I failed! – The mere fact that I'm here, alive, while so many of my people have died, is proof enough!"

Maurice held him so tight he could feel his heart beating against him. "Julien," he murmured, "There's nothing to forgive. You're King Julien XIII, and you will always live up to that name. What's happening here right now isn't about success or failure. This is madness… Clemson's madness, of which you've really had to endure already way too much in your life!" – He gently placed a paw on the younger lemur's cheek, nudging him to look up at him. – "Right now there seems to be no hope… but I'm sure the penguins will come and make it right, just like they always used to do when we screwed something up, back then in the Central Park Zoo. You know what they're like… they always know a way out. I'm sure we'll be alright!"

"I hope so…" Julien murmured through his tears, unable to let go, to back away. "Oh Momo, I hope so much that Masikura's spell has succeeded…!"

Maurice nodded silently, hating that he had no more comforting words to offer. He threw another log onto the embers, and it burst into flame all along its length. They kept sitting in silence for a while, wishing for the penguins to come, wishing for Clover to come back to life, slap their faces, and tell them to pull themselves together and get back into battle.

Then a rustling sound from the outside of the log fence caught Maurice's attention. Reluctantly he let go of Julien to see what was going on – as he carefully peered through the chinks between the stakes, he recognized the assistant captain of the Ringtail Guard crawling and scratching his laborious way through the dirt around the fence, digging up the ground as he went along. A little further away he could see more of the surviving lemurs roaming the jungle in the same way, bowing down to the dead as if searching them for something. Maurice wondered what this was about.

"Hey, Ted!" he hissed, leaning down to him over the log fence, "Ted, come inside – you'll be safe here! Tell the others to come, too!"

Ted flinched and looked up at him; his eyes were dazed and watery, staring through Maurice as if he was made out of smoke. "The Moon Pearls! We've got to find them!" he wailed, his voice near breaking. "If we don't bring them to the king, we… we're all going to… to die…!" Tears leaked out of the corners of his eyes and began to trickle down his pale cheeks.

Maurice frowned. "What are you talking about? Come inside! Nothing can hurt you here!"

But Ted shook his head fiercely. "We… we've got to keep looking! The… the king's servant said that if we come back empty-pawed, the witch will kill us…!"

He reached out a shaking paw to point at the coffee fields behind Maurice. "Have you found any pearls in these fields?"

"Pearls? There aren't any pearls here. I don't know what you mean! But listen, you've got to –." – But Ted wasn't listening anymore; he'd already skedaddled for the bushes nearby, continuing his frantic search. Maurice didn't know what to make of this.

Julien looked over to him with a sorrowful frown. "What's going on?"

Maurice shrugged. "I don't know. I –." He stopped when he suddenly heard a branch break behind him, followed by approaching footsteps rustling through the ground leaves. He swung around abruptly, shock on his face –

"I assume you have a good explanation for invading my territory like that."

A silhouette emerged from between the trees like a shadow detaching itself… and then a well-known fanaloka stood there before them in slender grace, a just as well-known cockroach cowering on the index finger of his left paw.

"Karl…!" Julien stared at his foe in surprise. "Now where are _you_ coming from?!"

He shrugged. "I thought I'd better make myself invisible and wait until things have cooled down a little." – He jerked his thumb pointing over his shoulder, where a pack of rats was landing the airship right behind the fields.

"So you know what's going on here?" Julien asked.

Karl nodded slowly. "I've witnessed it all from up there. – Who is that red lemur? I've never seen him here before."

"He's Clemson… and old foe. He dreamed of overthrowing me ever since we got to know each other. It seems he's managed to make that dream come true after all… now that he has magic on his side." Julien sighed; but then he remembered something, and he felt a small glow of hope within him. "But you… Masikura said you've been trained in magic, too." He took the fanaloka by the shoulders. "Listen, you've got to help us! The witch will kill everyone if Clemson doesn't get what he wants –!"

Karl blinked his eyes in surprise. Then he brushed Julien's paws away with a lopsided sneer. "Regrettable, really. But you don't really think _I_ was going to help _you_ , Julien? You'll have to deal with that foreign lemur on your own. If you can't protect your people from what he's going to do to them, that's your own business." He turned his back on them with a casual shrug. "As far as I'm concerned, I think I just want to get back in the air as soon as I've refueled, and then I'll just stay up there and enjoy watching how this turns out."

"Please, Karl…!"

The fire highlighted the fanaloka's light brown fur with shades of crimson and flickered in his tangerine eyes as he smiled. "I can't deny it's a pleasure to see you beg, Julien. But this is one feud I don't want anything to do with. – Now get out of my territory before I send my rats out for you!"

Maurice frowned. When he looked into the fanaloka's glittering eyes he knew there was no way to argue Karl out of his decision; but perhaps they needed to go about that in a different way. They needed something to catch his attention, to spark his ambition… spark him to act voluntarily to their advantage. "Let it go, Your Majesty," he said, addressing Julien, yet loud enough for Karl to hear, "He probably isn't powerful enough anyway. If he were to fight that witch, I bet she'd defeat him in a second."

Karl's expression darkened. "Oh, really?" – Maurice had to hide a grin; he could see in the fanaloka's eyes that he was immediately beginning to feel provoked. – "So that's what you're thinking?"

"Oh yes, it is! That witch is just too mighty – her spells are extremely strong… in fact, I believe they're unbreakable!" – He pointed at Clover's frozen form on the ground. "Look at her – she's been a victim of her magic, too… I bet no sorcerer could ever redeem her!"

"Let's see about that." Karl stepped toward her, a look of firm resolution besetting his features; he started to utter strange whispers which were probably secret words of enchantment. Then he turned his right paw palm up and snapped his fingers – the ice enclosing Clover began to melt immediately, dripping away faster and faster. They watched with awe as in a mess of tangled wet fur Clover's face flushed up red, and her wide-open eyes gleamed with a sudden burst of energy as life shot back into her. Then, with a piercing scream, she jumped to her feet and began shouting obscenities while stomping around and throwing her fists through the air. Yelling in a belated release of her temper, she let out hoarse screams of frustration and defeat as she cursed the red lemur with all the worst words she knew.

"I'll get you yet, Clemson! I'll kill you! I'LL KILL YOU!"

Julien and Maurice exchanged smiles of relief. "She seems quite alright, doesn't she."

Karl smirked down on them. "Who's the better sorcerer now, Maurice?"

"Calm down, Clover. It's too late," Julien called out to the captain of the Ringtail Guard in an attempt to cool her temper, "Clemson has already conquered the entire island."

Icy water plastered Clover's wet fur to her skin and kept running down her body in rivulets as she stood there, chest heaving, gathering her wits. Then she leapt up to grab the top of the log fence and heaved herself up to have a look outside.

"Oh, no…!" Her fiercely burning eyes went soft and concerned for a moment when she viewed from above what was going on in the jungle. "But… but how could he?!"

Julien lowered his head with a sigh. "It's magic… no doubt about it. Magic must have done everything for him. How else could he have enslaved my people and all the other kingdoms in Madagascar in only one night?"

Clover jumped back down and started pacing restlessly up and down in front of them. "Yes. I wouldn't believe it when I first saw that witch," she told them, "That lemur girl who was with Clemson… she is Seven. Seven the Golden Lemur… she exists! Now we all know those stories about supernatural beings, haunted places, ghosts, and other spooky creatures that circulate among our people… personally I've never believed any of them, even though Grandma Rose told me a dozen." She shrugged. "Well, the one about the Golden Lemur must be true after all – and Clemson has brought Seven back into this world!"

Julien and Maurice nodded with worried looks on their faces. Karl, however, kept his steely gaze fixed on the floor, and for a moment Julien thought he saw something like sadness in his eyes.

"It'd be helpful to know what Clemson's up to next," said Maurice, "Whatever it is, it certainly won't be good for us in any way! I saw Ted before; he and some others were combing through the forest because of an order Clemson had given them and said that he would kill them if they didn't follow that order! Really, I didn't quite catch what this was about, though; Ted said he was looking for some moon pearls or something…"

"The Moon Pearls?" Karl looked up again, his eyes widened. "Now way – she can't be that _stupid…_!"

Quizzical looks met him on all sides. "What do you mean by that?" Julien asked.

Karl waved him off. "Never mind." – Clover shot the fanaloka a suspicious look. – "These pearls are magical artifacts that are hidden here on this island," he added reluctantly, "I don't know why Clemson and the witch could want them."

"Probably to gain some more magical powers from them," Maurice muttered.

"Yeah… but we can't allow that to happen! – Karl, you just have to stop the witch!" Julien tried to tell him one more time, deciding to pull another little ruse on him like Maurice had done before, "– Didn't you say yourself that you and me, we are eternal enemies, and no one will have the pleasure of destroying you, except you? Well, right now the situation looks pretty grim and hopeless... I hate to say it, but I'm not sure how much longer I'm going to survive this. That means it's Clemson who will go down in Madagascar's history as the one who proudly slayed me – not you."

Karl said nothing; however, the thought seemed to unsettle him.

"– But look, you and I, we can just as well resume our feud later on, can't we," Julien continued eagerly, "If we work together now, maybe we can defeat both Clemson and the witch –! …And, uh, live to fight each other another day. What do you say?"

Karl was silent for a while; when they already thought they weren't going to get an answer he finally heaved a deep sigh. "Maybe you're right. Very well then; just this once, Julien, you and I shall be allies. This doesn't mean I'd care about you in any way – I just want to claim your life for myself, that's all. And I don't care about your people, either; still I'd very much like to stop that lemur from going on with his deeds since later on – you know, after I defeated _you_ then as well – I wouldn't be very interested in ruling over a kingdom full of corpses… Because no matter how much Clemson oppresses and tyrannizes the other animals, they'll never find the last of those pearls."

The three of them shared a questioning look. "Why not?"

Karl's little friend climbed up on his shoulder, and a dark smile came over the fanaloka's face when Chauncey reached under his wings and handed him an object he'd been hiding there all this time, tiny and round, glowing in soft shades of blue.

"Because I have it."

* * *

 **A/N:** _Uh... on second thought I should definitely rate up from here on. So if this story disappears from the display list within the next few days, it's because it got moved to the M section. I very much hope to have the opportunity to welcome you back there next week!_


	9. Chapter 8 - Sanguinary Magic

**A/N:** _So this story just got moved to Section M; I hope everyone can see the new chapters. Thank you so much for coming back. You guys are the best! :) Soon we shall have all our heroes reunited after all... ;)_

* * *

CHAPTER 8

 **SANGUINARY MAGIC**

The castle drummed with the rhythm of falling water. Overhead, muffled with distance, thunder throbbed.

Clemson hugged a leaf around his shoulders and stepped out through the back door into the darkness and rain. Behind the castle there was a very large rose garden; when he'd seen it first during the day he'd considered it very lovely, but now the lawn was all muddy from the rain, and the roses looked gray and dead. From the balcony above he heard Faraday sound the recall horn; the day Clemson had given his commoners to carry out his order was over, and it was midnight again when everyone was now returning to the castle.

On the other side of the garden Seven sploshed across the rainy paths; he watched as she guided the arriving animals in and made sure that a little later everyone was kneeling in the wet foliage of the garden shrubbery in front of Clemson. There were only three Harpies standing guard around the place – the rest of the demons were still scattered across the island, making sure no one was trying to escape. However, everyone seemed frightened enough by Clemson's mere appearance, so he didn't mind.

"I've come to collect my, uh… 'royal revenue'," he announced then as he stood before them, "I hope, for your own sake, that you are able to bring me what I demanded."

There was a dreadful silence among the assembled animals.

Then one of the crocodiles – the Ambassador's second chancellor – stepped forward, shivering. "Have mercy, Your Majesty! We searched up and down the island for hours, all the way to one end and back! But there were only five pearls to be found…!"

The chancellor held out a small wooden casket; keeping his head bowed, he placed it in Clemson's paws and then backed away silently.

Clemson opened the clasp, lifted the lid, and looked inside. Nestled on a bed of burgundy velvet, five pearls were gleaming up at him, the brightest and most valuable of all pearls Clemson had ever seen in his life. Each of them was illuminated by the same blue splendor and looked similar to the sixth one attached to his scepter.

They looked very promising to him, but the witch frowned darkly.

"We need all seven of them! – And I say that miserable crocodile is lying, just like the others; they want to hide from us where that least pearl is because they fear the power of the spell I'm going to perform! But don't worry, King Clemson – I know more ways than one to make them talk…!" – He nodded for her to go on, and she stepped ahead to face the chancellor. She looked ridiculously small and frail against the large reptile, yet he was the one who shivered in front of her.

"Are you sure you don't know where that pearl is, crocodile?" she hissed, her paws starting to glow gold, "Maybe you better think again!"

"Don't kill me!" he pleaded, "I swear I don't know where it is; I'd get it for you right away if I had the slightest idea! But I don't; I swear it on my life, Golden Lemur! Please don't kill me!"

Seven smirked. "Alright, since you won't talk, why don't we have a little dance instead?"

The chancellor was stammering more words, begging her to reconsider, when a cannonade of squealing wind burst over him, drowning out his voice. The sudden blast shoved him sideways and then swept him completely off his feet. Clemson grinned widely at the sight of the crocodile's flustered face.

"Come, come! For an animal shackled by gravity there can't be anything more exciting than having your feet stop sticking to the ground. – Come, dance in the vast, rainy sky! Don't you sometimes wish you could fly like a seagull and escape the narrow and boring island of Madagascar? Now, I'll make that dream come true for you! – Come, dance for us, Chancellor! Through the rain, through the wind! Fly around like you were dancing – let the moon shine on you and bless you!"

Raising both paws up in the air with her fingers spread and palms turned out, Seven made the crocodile's body flutter around in a whirlwind like a dead leaf high above the paths of the rainy garden. The rain pounded upon every part of the chancellor's body and the wind lashed into his face, stinging and scourging, large raindrops bursting over him like a breaker. He was holding onto his head, screaming over and over.

 _"Stop it! Stop it! Let me down!_ "

"You're right; it's more fitting for crocodiles to crawl on the ground." – The witch lowered her paws; the whirlwind that had been making the crocodile chancellor fly grew weaker, then stopped. He was once again bound by the restrictions of gravity, like any animal without the influence of magic – so he began to drop towards the ground, head upside-down. After plummeting about a hundred feet he hit the stony ground with a sickening crunch. The screams stopped instantly. He lay there facedown, his legs at odd angles and his short arms splayed. His body was spread out like a carpet of fresh blood, bones broken and crushed, flesh torn and smashed.

The crowd screamed and pulled back in shock.

Seven's cackling laughter echoed through the darkness and rain. "Hahahahahihihaha! How easy it is to break things in the Light World, and how difficult it is to fix them!" – For a moment the witch seemed to be intoxicated by her own powers, by the thought of how much she had yet to gain. – "Anyone can take a life. But no animal can revive a lost life! Only by surpassing the irreversible one can prove that one has surpassed animalhood once and for all. And you, all of you, will help me prove this by bestowing that last pearl upon me!"

She turned to the next animal kneeling beside her, a rat woman, who flinched when Seven's gaze fell upon her.

"It's not here! I swear!" she cried with a whimper, "Please, Seven, please let me live!"

Seven raised her glowing paws upon her but then hesitated and looked at Clemson again for reassurance. He nodded encouragingly to her.

"Go on. Make sure at all costs that we get what we need!"

"It will be my pleasure, King Clemson." Laughing, the witch pointed her glowing finger at the rat woman, who kept begging for mercy. Her body began glittering and then rapidly shrinking; golden wings sprouted from her back when she had shrunken down to the size of a butterfly. Just like she had done with the crocodile chancellor, Seven whirled her through the air at first – but then, when her dance began wearing her out, the enchanted rat was suddenly caught by a gentle bed… a soft, knit web of silky threads spun right there in the shadows among the roses. The owner of that web lumbered into view, welcoming its rare guest who had dropped by for a visit in this dark and stormy night… That owner, a simple spider which should have been small enough to be crushed between the palms of a rat's paws, now looked as big as a canopy bed to the enchanted rat woman.

"No… _Nooooooo!_ " The rat woman gave a high-pitched, tearing, convulsive cry when the spider tossed a sticky, gooey thread around her. Frantically she struggled to release herself from the crisscross of silk encasing her golden wings, writhing and begging for her life, but her pleas were ignored.

"Kyahahahihihahakyaaa… this time it's a dance with a spider!" the witch rejoiced, "I've heard that spiders don't chew their prey but inject their venom, and when the insides melt into a sticky soup, they suck it out. Make sure you watch closely and tell us if that's true, okay? Very closely. Hahahahaha!"

" _Gyaaaaaaaahh!_ " A single, agonizing shriek tore through the night, chilling them to their bones as the spider plunged its deadly fangs into the butterfly's throat and began gnawing. The poison seared through the rat's enchanted body; for a moment her original form became visible again. Blood spurted from her jugular, drenching her face and fur while her screaming turned into gurgles. Seven grabbed her and held her until her body stopped trembling and no more gurgles came from her slit throat. Then she stood, letting the body fall to the floor, and looked at the blood coating her legs and arms with a smile of contentment on her lips.

"I can make her go on like this forever," Clemson said to the rest of the terrified animals, "And I will, if you don't tell me where that pearl is. I know that it must be here on Madagascar somewhere, and that crocodile guy just confirmed himself that you've been searching all over the island – so if you don't want to end up like those other two, you better talk now." There was nothing particularly aggressive about his tone, but they huddled closer together at the mere sound of his voice. Clemson saw fear in every eye. He felt great.

Seven pranced up and down in front of them before she randomly chose another victim... a lemur from Julien's pack.

" _No!_ Have mercy, Seven! Have mercy!" Ted screamed.

"Ah, you…!" she purred at Ted like a gorged fossa. Blood ran down her thighs and calves and dripped from her black fur; daintily she licked it from her fingers.

– "You resent me; I know. I made your wife suffer and killed her. But don't worry – you shall be reunited with her again soon!"

The witch softly, gently lifted her finger, as though touching the empty air in front of Ted's nose. When she did, a light breeze arose, lifting Ted off his feet. His body kept floating, rebounding in the air like a feather… approaching the wrought iron fence which stood sentinel around the garden, rusted with age, protecting the castle's inhabitants with spear-shaped prongs that rose into the air. And the witch made Ted fly, fly, fly – soon his body would be hovering right over the pointed spearheads...

Clemson and the three Harpies cheered for her to go on – and then it was over.

Seven's paws stopped glowing; the golden gleam all around her body disappeared. A sudden stunning silence fell over the entire garden. Ted dropped to the ground with a thump; he yelped in surprise but otherwise remained completely unharmed.

Seven gasped, staring with wide eyes at her open, empty palms, as if she'd just lost something very precious.

"What now?!" Clemson asked, frowning. Suddenly the two of them seemed strangely outnumbered against the rest of the assembled animals.

"Impossible!" she wailed, "No, no, no…! This shouldn't be happening!" She clenched her paws into fists. "I can't do it, Your Majesty –!"

"Yes, you can. It's my island; I own it. I can do with it as I please – and so I can do with the people living here."

"No, Your Majesty, I mean –."

"Listen, now isn't the time to get cold feet!" he hissed at her, "Get a grip on yourself and stay focused – and get that spell working again!"

The witch sighed, flustered. "I _would_ do all you ask, if only I could – but I can't!"

"Why the hell not?!"

"I don't know… my powers… they're gone! My body is still there, but I can't use my magic anymore; I don't know why!"

When they heard this, the animals kneeling before them began exchanging gazes and whispered words. Unfortunately they understood things more quickly than Clemson had hoped they would –

"Run, everybody!" someone shouted, "It's now or never if you want to save your lives!" - Seconds later everyone jumped to their feet and began scrambling in all directions, putting as much distance between themselves and Clemson as possible. As fast as they could they fled across the rainy paths and disappeared in the sheltering darkness before he or the witch and the three remaining demons could do anything.

"Stop them!" Clemson yelled at Seven, "Summon some more of your demons and stop them!"

"I can't," she cried, "I can't!"

It wasn't long until all of their intended victims were gone.

Clemson swelled with anger. "What kind of a lousy witch are you?!" he yelled at Seven so loudly, so forcefully, that she recoiled from the power of his voice. "Whatever I tell you to do, you keep on messing up half of it! I free you, and you can't even grant me your alliance without demanding an enormous sacrifice from me; I ask you for a spell, and you can't even get the things together you need; and now you can't even tell me what this is about! – Seriously, I'm starting to think you're not half as powerful as you claim to be!"

"It's not my fault! Really, I'm sure I did everything right!" she cried back in frustration; if breaking down and throwing a temper tantrum at this point had accomplished anything, she probably would've done so. But there was nothing she could do; there was obviously no way for her to use her magic now, no matter how much she tried.

"Well, you have to admit he's right, don't you?" – All of a sudden, a voice cut through the rain. – "You failed… again."

They both turned to see a shadowy shape standing at the end of the rain-swept path behind them. Thunderclouds had rolled over the defiant moon, and the figure was washed in darkness – then the stranger began approaching them slowly, almost casually. He was an animal Clemson hadn't seen on this island before.

Seven seemed to know him well enough, though; she stared at him, a myriad of emotions flickering across her face, too quickly for Clemson to track.

"Karl…!"

He stood with arms outstretched as if he wanted to embrace the rain that drenched his fur, rivers of it running down his body.

"Welcome back, Seven. This world does not belong to you anymore!"

Clemson looked at the other animal. He had finely chiseled features and tender whiskers, well-groomed fur with an extravagant pattern, and a bushy tail with dark horizontal stripes. Black eyelids were covering eyes in all shades of fire. A light scent of coffee surrounded him like exotic perfume, blending with the sweet rainy air.

"Who are you?"

His black lips twisted into a smile. "My name is Karl the Fanaloka, and you have no business being here, foreigner. There can be only one legendary genius in Madagascar… and right now you're face to face with him." He ran his perfectly filed and polished claws along the stem of a rose growing next to the path and broke it.

– "Oh, and quit messing around with those poor saps, will you. They don't have what you're looking for." With a slight wave of his paw he caused the rose to open its petals – nestled in the flower chalice lay the last of the Moon Pearls.

"I should have known it…!" The witch clenched her paws into fists. "You skygoddamn smug bastard." She reached out for the pearl, but before she could grab it he snatched it away from her and closed his fist around the glowing ball.

He grinned at her sour expression. "Why so touchy, Yasu? Are things not going your way?"

"Don't call me by that name!" she screamed, her face distorting with sudden anger and rejection, "Don't allude to the old days, in Frank's name, or I shall go mad!"

"And what would you call what you're doing right now?" – She growled deep in her throat, looking like she wanted to eat him alive. – "Relax. It's not my fault that you've overestimated yourself once again. Though I've got to admit that this ritual you carried out in order to bind your soul to mortal flesh is quite elaborate indeed... difficult and very individual. If you don't know what you're doing, things can go wrong easily."

"What's the point you're trying to make?!" she hissed, "I knew exactly what I was doing when I merged my soul into that lemur's body!"

One of his black eyebrows arched upward. "Oh, really? Then why can't you use your witchcraft here and now, anytime and anyhow you like?"

She snorted. "I have no idea. It doesn't make any sense!"

"Oh, but it does," Karl chuckled, "You don't think you're the first ghost who tried to take over someone else's body, do you. I've seen this with other ghosts before, and it looks like everything that happened to them is also happening to you in the same way."

She frowned darkly. "What do you mean by that?!"

"Well, you may indeed have managed to possess the body of another – yet it seems there must be something you haven't performed correctly during the course of the spell since you can use your new body in this world only temporarily. To be more exact, it appears you can use it to its full potential only during the time when ghosts are at their most powerful – and you both know when that is, right?"

Clemson exchanged a brief look with the witch. "Midnight...?"

"Exactly. The time when the beginning and the end melt together," Karl confirmed, accompanying his words with a sweeping theatrical gesture. "It is said that midnight is the witching hour, the time when ghosts are strongest because the night is darkest. It is also said to be the time when every sorcerer's magic is at its most effective. But since you have a body again now you should be able to have permanent power here in this world; in fact you shouldn't have to worry at all about whether it's midnight or not... but obviously that's still the case. That shows you've very clearly overestimated yourself." He smirked when he watched her frown turn into a very puzzled expression.

– "If you had performed the ritual successfully, you could've used magic here in the Light World anytime you wanted, just as you planned it, and at midnight you would've even been twice as strong. But since you didn't, the spell only partially works: only at midnight can you gain enough power for it to take effect at all."

He raised one paw skyward, forefinger extended, pointing at the dark clouds over their heads.

"If you think about it a little bit, you can easily see that I'm right – you've been back in this world for two days now. Yesterday night you conquered the island, and I admit you did that fairly quickly, so you were done with it in less than one hour. Tonight you messed with those animals – and look at the moon now; it's about an hour after midnight, and here you are, powerless again."

They followed his finger with their gazes, looking up to the sky; meanwhile it had partially cleared, enough so that the three-quarter moon peeked through the threads of murky clouds. They carefully observed it for a while, and Clemson had to see that the fanaloka wasn't lying.

"Wait, this doesn't mean you can only serve me one hour a night, does it?!" he said, turning to Seven; she had folded her arms, chin set in a stubborn line, brows bunched together with anger. For a moment she looked like she wanted to say something, but then she averted her gaze and glared moodily into the dark.

"A lot can be done in one hour. I managed to conquer Madagascar for you in one hour!"

Karl chuckled again. "Yes, but now those animals have witnessed how you suddenly lost your powers, and it won't take long until the entire island knows it. Because what would keep me from just walking away and telling them that they've actually got twenty-three more hours to take necessary preparations in order to defend themselves against your next attack?"

Seven stared at him as if she couldn't believe his impudence, as if this was all just some hideous prank he was playing on her.

"You're despicable! Despicable!" she spat at him then, the words made all the more vicious by the contemptuous glare she gave him. "I hate you, Karl, from the bottom of my heart!"

– He just laughed off that declaration as if it didn't matter to him at all.

Clemson swallowed nervously. "Tell me he's lying!" he interfered, taking the witch harshly by her frail shoulders. "What he says can't be true! – How am I supposed to defend my sovereignty in the future if you can fight for me only one hour a night?!"

"Maybe you should've thought again before entering into an alliance like that, stranger," sneered Karl.

"Don't listen to him!" Seven reached up, grasped the red lemur's wrists, and took his paws off her shoulders. "I promise you, King Clemson, that one hour a night will be enough to fulfill everything you ask for!"

He looked grimly down at her. "Well, I'm going to hold you to that promise," he muttered.

"Don't worry, Your Majesty." She strode ahead to stand menacingly in front of Karl, her whole demeanor one of tightly controlled fury. "Listen, Karl – I hereby challenge you to a duel next midnight in the water park in the center of the lemur village!"

"Oh?" The fanaloka raised his black eyebrows enquiringly.

"If it's true what you say, then I've got at least one hour to beat you – so tomorrow at midnight you and I shall fight for the possession of that last Moon Pearl. If you have a man's heart rather than a coward's, I insist you turn up to this duel! And if you fail to do so I'll let every citizen of Madagascar know about it, and you'll be a coward in the eyes of all animals! Do you have the guts to accept that challenge?"

Karl was silent for a moment as if in deep thought, keeping his unreadable gaze locked on her. Then, before turning to leave, he playfully tucked the rose he'd picked onto the one-winged butterfly on the scepter she was holding.

"I'll be there."

* * *

Mort looked upward, lost to everything but his model and the canvas before him. The dark shadow of the baobab tree was checkered at its edges with dazzling light that danced and quivered like magic liquid ripples as the outer branches swayed to and fro, yielding gracefully to the gentle morning breeze that stirred them.

He smiled. His home tree was always most beautiful at that time of year.

He also loved the fact that it was growing so deep in the jungle; there was hardly any other lemur around here. It was such a peaceful place; there were no neighbors within sight or sound, no one who wanted anything from him.

He finished arranging his tools and was just about to put the first stroke on the canvas when he noticed that within the depths of the baobab's shadow there stood a lemur.

"Hi, Mort." Seven stepped toward him, smiling. She'd brought the brush along which Mort had given her earlier, as well as a slender stick of black ebony adorned with a pommel stone of smoky quartz at one end… Mort's eyes grew wide with fascination when he realized that it had to be a magic wand.

"Hi, Seven!" He waved to her excitedly, green paint dripping from his brush. "I… I wasn't sure if you'd feel like joining me after all. – But I still brought along a second canvas for you."

"Thank you!" She put it up next to his and then looked at it as if all the blank white space scared her. "Oh dear, now you have to help me out a bit. I've never done that before…"

Mort giggled, pointing at the wand in her paw. "I bet you could just use your magic to create the painting for you." – She rolled her eyes, smiling.

"Yes, I could… Magic really is helpful sometimes. It alleviates a lot of things."

"May I hold your wand for a moment?"

She gave it to him. Mort took it and observed it with great care, reverently running his fingers over the golden ribbons adorning its shaft. "Some day you really have to teach me how to use that!"

She smiled. "Point it at the canvas and say 'paint'."

He did as she said. "Paint." – Nothing happened.

Mort pouted. "It doesn't work!"

"Of course it doesn't," she laughed, "There's much more behind using magic than waving your wand around and saying strange things. – Here, let me show you."

She didn't even need to voice the spell aloud; with a mere wave of her wand she portrayed a perfect painting of Mort's tree on her canvas. Mort stared at the brushwork that was so precise, so perfect in its execution that he couldn't tell if he was looking at a photograph or a painting. Then he clasped his little paws together and hopped up and down with excitement.

"That's incredible! Totally incredible!"

"Ah, it's nothing, really. And I've come to learn from you how to paint; that way I'm not going to learn anything. So let's paint with our own paws now and not use any magic."

With another wave of her wand she undid the spell just as easily, making the colors of the painted tree fade away and turning the canvas back to a snowy white. Then she threw the wand aside, smiling down at Mort. "Besides, it'll be much more fun that way!"

* * *

Clemson poured himself another drink. He stared blankly out the window of his royal sleeping chamber, his mind consumed with thought; he'd barely had a few hours of sleep. Even with the sun shining bright outside, Clemson felt cold, big circles under his eyes framing his vacant look.

It was still early in the day when Faraday came in with his breakfast. The old servant looked just the same as before, dressed up in his banana leaf tuxedo, his ash brown fur so excessively shiny it looked quite unreal; Clemson guessed he had colored it somehow, possibly because it was already turning gray underneath. Just like earlier, there was hardly any trace of emotion in his features that were so strangely stiff.

Obviously noticing the distant look in Clemson's tired, pain-swollen eyes, Faraday inquired about his well-being; Clemson reassured him with a withdrawn smile that he was alright and sent him away. He then spent the day in the castle's library, unable to read or even remember the books, just looking out the window, trapped in his mind. Pictures of the witch's atrocious deeds kept clouding his brain – when he closed his eyes he could still see the mangled bodies of Seven's victims.

The rat woman curled up in the spider's web, fresh blood dribbling from her throat.

The crocodile chancellor's body that splashed into a gory bloody mess when it hit the ground, his spine horrendously bent, his limbs broken off, his face horribly smashed as though the scaly skin had been neatly peeled off.

He told himself that this didn't mean anything – after all, their deaths had only served him well, just like the deaths of the many animals the previous day when Seven had sent out her demons to conquer the island for him. Yet a part of him kept wondering how she could go around slaying them so brutally, yet with such ease – during the time she'd been undead, she must've forgotten what death meant to an animal! She'd taken their lives just as easily as she'd taken Mea's, rejoicing in the cruel act, laughing all the way… He tried to brush the memory off, but it stayed, lingered, throbbed painfully in his mind. When he closed his eyes again, those weren't the screams of the tortured animals he was hearing now – those were Mea's screams…

Just then the door of the library flew open, freezing him.

"I'm back, Your Majesty!"

A look of terror flashed in his eye but only for the briefest instant. Then it vanished behind a constrained plastic smile. "Hello, Seven," he greeted the witch – and then blinked his eyes in surprise when he saw that she had smeared herself all over with paint. There, on her cheek, a stain of dark blue, another on her belly, joined by a trailing vine of white paint down her left flank. "Where have you been? – And what about that paint in your fur?"

"What?" She blinked her eyes as if realizing it for the first time and then wiped a dab off her nose. "Oh, I was just… I was painting, you know. Out in the forest."

He frowned. "Shouldn't you rather be practicing magic instead so you can beat that fanaloka tonight?"

"Oh, don't worry about that." She laughed. "He's no match for me; I'll bring him down easily. I'll squash him like a mosquito and feel as much remorse about it as I'd give the parasite when I do!"

Something about her careless attitude began to bother him. Her willfulness, her callous treatment of his affairs… slowly he got the feeling she couldn't really be trusted to do anything carefully. While at times she was acting very composed and majestic, she'd also proven to have a very joyful attitude and quite a childish side; she wouldn't take any instructions Faraday gave her seriously, yet it was obvious that she kept hopelessly overestimating her own abilities. Frankly, she was starting to get on Clemson's nerves with her antics. "I think you better stay here and practice now. I don't think that Karl is all talk, you know."

She thought about that for a moment but then shrugged. "No, I'd rather go play with the Harpies now." She turned to leave, but he caught her by the wrist in a harsh grip.

"Not so fast." – He pulled her back against him. – "Seven, I want you to win that duel – I want you to win it no matter what! Conviction alone is seldom enough to win a fight, so you better start taking some measures to ensure your victory!" He showed her a book he'd been reading before. "Look here, for example in this grimoire they describe how to prepare for a magic battle…"

She made an angry face at him, yanking her arm free. "I _will_ win that duel! And I don't need any stupid books for that." – She wanted to run off again, but he wouldn't let her.

"You better make sure that you do." He grabbed her by the chest fur and drew her close, his eyes boring into hers. "Listen, Missy, don't take this too lightly. I don't ask you for this because I think a magic duel is funny to watch or something. I ask you to do that because it means something to me – _a lot,_ in fact. I need you to come out the winner of that duel _at all costs,_ do you understand? It's about time you give me back what I want, and I won't wait much longer for you to do so." – The last words he spoke in a voice cold as stone. – "So I'm warning you… do not fail me again tonight."

He let go of her and stepped away; for a moment there was an expression of genuine fear in the witch's eyes. That satisfied him. But she quickly collected herself, regaining her majestic serenity; then she curtseyed to him with a hard glitter in her eyes.

"I won't, Your Majesty."

* * *

Around noon Julien, Maurice, and Clover were reunited with Karl in his airship. Together they were rummaging through a box room in the back of the zeppelin, trying to find something that would prepare them for what they were about to face the following night.

"Are you sure you want to do it, Karl?" Julien asked, staggering under the weight of a book the fanaloka handed him which was very heavy and awkward to carry.

"Well, I don't exactly have a choice, do I? Seven won't give in until she has that pearl, and that mad despotic red lemur doesn't make things any easier. On the contrary; he effectively seems to incite her to fight me about it."

Julien put the book aside, his face darkening with concern at the thought of Clemson.

"Do you think that he… that in the meantime he's learned about magic, too?"

"No, I don't think so. He rather looked like he had no idea of what Seven and I were talking about; that's why he wanted to make sure all the more that in the end he'd get what he wants."

Karl knelt next to a box in one corner, dusted off the top flaps, and then opened it to have a look. It was filled with loads of books, leaves inscribed with magic formulas and incantations, and black-and-white photographs of Madagascar in earlier times. He rummaged through the contents, locating and pulling out a slender golden wand tipped with a diamond point. – "Ha! I found it!" Memories were flickering through his eyes when he weighed it in his paws. "My old magic wand…!"

Maurice and Clover dropped the boxes they were holding and came over to them, and all three of them huddled around the fanaloka to look at it. "But that's all been so long ago… I just hope I haven't bitten off more than I can chew by agreeing to this duel." Karl shrugged. "When we had our little practice fights earlier, sometimes I would win and sometimes she would."

Maurice raised his eyebrows in surprise. "You've known Seven before?"

"Yes. We've been educated in magic together."

"So… you really went to, uh… magic school or something?" Julien asked.

"Well, _yes,_ " Karl replied pointedly, staring back at the young lemur with narrowed eyes. "But since you've never even noticed me in lemur school, why would you remember what became of me when we went separate ways after graduation?!" – Julien rubbed the back of his head with a sheepish smile. – "I started training as a witch doctor but then spent my time focusing more on, uh… my own creative career."

Maurice frowned. "You mean, scheming evil plans to take over Madagascar!"

"I guess you could put it that way," Karl admitted with a lopsided grin, "– Anyway, I fear I've already forgotten most of what I learned back then! – I hardly remember which way round to hold this," he murmured, waving his wand around. "Oh well, it's a big advantage that I don't actually have to _win_ this fight. In fact, all I need to do is hang on until midnight hour has passed."

"Why is that?"

"Because then Seven is going to lose her powers." – Reading their questioning gazes, he tried to explain to them in simple terms what he'd learned from all his books so long ago.

"You see, Seven is a ghost. A ghost is… well, nothing substantial; that means she must have taken someone's body in order to use magic effectively in this world. A ghost has no body and therefore has to use one that's already there. That makes sense, doesn't it?" – All three of them nodded. – "Well, it looks like she messed something up when she performed the spell that would let her take over that body, so now she can only use it one hour each day… midnight hour, to be precise. That's of course the reason why our duel is scheduled right then. But _I_ am the one who has the pearl, so it's _her_ who has to win at all costs – me, I don't. To me there's no disadvantage if, after the hour has passed, this duel ends in a tie."

"I think I got this," Julien said, and Maurice nodded, too.

"Okay, so you don't have to win – just make sure you don't lose." Clover shaded her eyes with her paw as she gazed out the window, checking the position of the sun in the sky. "You've got the whole day to revise your lessons and prepare yourself, and you better do – because otherwise the witch will make you surrender to Clemson, too, and then he will conquer your territory as well and really become the king of _all_ of Madagascar! And then Frank help us – then we're done for!"


	10. Chapter 9 - The Witch and the Fanaloka

CHAPTER 9

 **THE WITCH AND THE FANALOKA**

The water park at night was a quiet place; at a time like this it wasn't teeming with activity anymore. In the dead of night there was no happy noise of lemurs bathing in the warmth of the summer sun and showing off their skills on the waterslides, no high-pitched chatter and sudden shrieks of laughter when one of them was pushed into a pool. Now the water in all the pools shimmered in the moonlight, its surface smooth and unbroken.

Standing at the top of the biggest waterslide, Karl let his gaze wander across the park – all the slides were set among waterfalls, rock formations, and steep cliffs that dropped far into a canyon below, where they ended in various splash pools and spas.

The more remote area of the canyon was densely forested: a slight movement which he caught between the trees revealed to him the place Julien, Maurice, and Clover had chosen as a hideout to secretly watch the duel and possibly assist him.

Everything was quiet – _too quiet_ , he thought, reaching for his wand, but then his paw halted in midair. His gaze dropped – there was a thin veil of fog curling around his ankles… a tingle of warning coursed through him, a shimmer of deceit.

"I knew you would come, Karl," said a voice from the shadows behind him. "I knew you were no coward."

Karl didn't move. He knew who was there. Slowly he turned around.

The Golden Lemur was standing on the cliff behind him, her graceful fingers clutching her wand.

A brief wave of nostalgia flooded him the first moment he looked at her – this was exactly what she'd looked like when she'd stood before him so long ago, that day in magic school when they'd been paired for a practice duel for the very first time. Her flared dress of baobab leaves with frilly sleeves and neck, those lilac blooms tucked behind her ear… This was the slender grace and the innocent candor of the lovely lemur girl who had been his youth's desire, and for a moment the thought of having to fight her saddened him – but then he swallowed back the memories that had hit him for a second and grabbed his wand.

"Alright, Seven – you and me, one on one!"

The witch bared her teeth, her lips curling in an evil smile. "Let's dance, Karl."

They turned to face each other and bowed; then they raised their wands like swords in front of them and took their stances, starting off right away.

From the tip of his wand Karl released a burst of raw power which shot forth as a red ray of pure magical energy. At the same time Seven set loose a blue beam of her own. Her freezing spell met Karl's heat spell: a firework display of red and blue sparks soared upward from the point where the two powerful forces collided. The fiery red of Karl's spell and the cold blue of Seven's spell sent an array of their colors at least a hundred feet above the ground.

Minutes passed, both of them relentless and unceasing in their test of power and will.

Then, slowly, the blue energy lengthened while the red beam shortened – Karl could see that he wasn't going to be able to hold out much longer. So could Seven; her malicious grin reflected that knowledge. She even intensified her spell – a clashing of blue magical energy exploded high into the air, sweeping her opponent off his feet and sending him slipping down one of the waterslides all the way into the canyon.

"A little out of practice, aren't you, Karl," the witch sneered, gazing down at him from above. "You're no match for me – I shall teach you of every abyss in the world of magic, of the depths where no light reaches!"

Karl could see her lips move as she murmured an incantation. Within moments, the whole park began changing its form – the massive, corkscrewed waterslides spiraling down to the huge pool suddenly came alive, turning into a tangle of venomous snakes. They were everywhere, a writhing mass of deadly reptiles – slithering their way right toward the fanaloka, who was standing with his back to the canyon wall.

"This water park is very nice, but I thought it's lacking the main attraction – so how about a pool of snakes to swim with?! – Oh, sweet poison! Bite him! Bite him!" Seven cheered them on, and Karl could already imagine what would happen when the snakes would reach him. He would feel dozens of fangs rip at his fur and pierce his skin, until he either bled out or the poison killed him. – If they didn't squeeze him to death before, that was.

He took a deep breath and forced himself to relax and focus on a counter spell.

Sensing the power surging through him, he concentrated on the physical forms of the snakes and began to pull them into the energy of the spell, feeling he would succeed even before it was done. He brandished his wand at the first snake, and there was a loud bang –

Wrapped in a silver ball of magical energy, the snakes merged into a single, grotesque creature, half spider crab, half octopus. Its long, thin legs were segmented like an insect's, protruding from a black, spiny body. Another wave of his wand, and it turned away from him and faced his opponent instead, crawling up the wall of the canyon toward Seven in a straight line. The unexpected countermove caught her off guard – in an instant the beast was face to face with her, trying to sink its venomous fangs into the lemur girl's flesh.

Seven leapt just in time to avoid one of the black tentacles which darted at her legs. The creature screeched and thrashed its strong mandible, lurching violently. It reared up its front body, legs instantly doubling its size, long octopus-like tendrils thrashing and trying to stifle its prey.

However, the daring smile on the witch's face didn't even falter – touching the tip of her wand with her finger, she turned it into a razor-sharp scythe.

Then, with a mighty leap from her slender legs, she soared into the sky, higher than any natural lemur could ever jump, slashing with all her strength at the twisting tentacles. With one swish of the sharp blade she managed to slice one of them clean off. Another one reared. Again she sliced with the blade and again it was severed, but there were more and more – she decided to give up the futile effort and turn the attack back on her opponent.

"You cannot defeat me, Karl… any attempt upon your part is fruitless. The dark times are coming, and this world shall soon be teeming with demons!"

When the beast prepared the next attack, Seven deliberately allowed it to come up very close – then, when it was yet an arm's length away from her, she restored her wand's original form and brought the tip against its skull. Its color had turned into a shade of deep indigo – the crashing of the creature's strong mandible calmed as the blue reflected in all eight of its eyes: with a mere touch of her wand she had managed to submit the beast to her will.

Hissing furiously, the creature now turned against Karl and raised itself, fangs exposed, poised to strike. Before he knew what was happening, the fanaloka found himself in a cramped and compromised position as the creature moved closer, ready to kill.

The beast glared at Karl with all eight of its beady blue eyes. He barely had the time to conjure up a protective shield to defend himself against the first attack. Before it could strike again he quickly canceled the shield, turned his wand around, and rammed it into the earth in front of him. The ground shook with tremendous violence, as if thunderstruck; even the walls of the canyon quivered under the energy.

Startled, the beast withdrew from the attack with a squeal and cowered for a while before it dared to rear again – knocking the wand out of Karl's paws with the sweep of a tentacle.

Seven's crystal clear laughter echoed across the canyon. Karl bit back a curse.

 _Looks like things are getting tough now...!_

He raised both arms together in front of him, palms up and open, quickly muttering a spell – but nothing happened. He frantically dove off to the side as the beast attacked again, thrusting at any exposed flesh. From above he could hear Seven chuckle again and now cursed loudly at his forgetfulness – if only he'd remembered the old words correctly! He raised his arms again, repeating the spell in slightly altered words – this time it worked at once. The onslaught of his raw power rushed right into the beast's face, smacking out one of its poison-laden fangs. It dropped into the grass, spraying the ground with black blood.

Karl picked it up – a mighty leap, and he landed square on the back of the beast. He steadied himself, raised his arm and, with all his might, plunged the deadly fang into the skull of his attacker. The creature screeched as its own poison now tracked its way mercilessly through its blood vessels, seeking out the vital organs in an attempt to extinguish its life. The blue eyes rolled and bulged as it fought for survival. Then, after it reared one final time, it crumbled to the ground.

Much to his relief Karl now had time to scramble to his wand; he ran it right through the creature which had come so close to sinking its deadly fangs into him, intending to make sure that its life force was gone. Dark, syrup-like blood oozed from the impaled beast's abdomen and trickled down the wand, and he raised his fist with a shout of triumph.

Behind his back he heard Julien, Maurice, and Clover shouting out as well – too late he realized that they were trying to warn him. He'd been trying to remove the sticky wand from the creature's body and hadn't noticed that while he was busy doing so, one of the tentacles had slowly risen up high into the air again – and now came swinging sideways for the unsuspecting fanaloka, who was sent sprawling to the ground yet again.

"Smash him!" Seven cheered the beast on, "Poison him and then suck out his molten innards bit by bit by bit, so he can feel what it's like to be dying while he's still living and breathing, so he can feel what it's like to be eaten inside out!"

Karl flinched and groaned as the heavily injured beast moved over and sank its huge fangs into his leg and pumped him with deadly venom. He slumped to the ground as poison seared through him.

"Is your turn already over with this?" Seven giggled, the sound of her voice like razors slicing across slate. "Any last words before I send you to see Frank?"

Her laughter was pure and cruel, very dissonant to his ear, floating at him from somewhere far away. And there were more voices and footsteps approaching him – his vision blurring into a haze of disconnected whorls of color, he watched as the three lemurs, well-armed and ready to fight, came running into the battlefield to come to his aid.

"I'm not done yet!" he panted, "You and your minions will be exterminated!"

Through a dark red haze he watched as Clover leapt forward to meet the beast first – she raised her two-headed battle axe overhead and chopped off the last moving tentacle. Severed, it fell to the ground with a hollow thump – there it turned back into the part of a waterslide. Julien and Maurice didn't hesitate either. Julien threw his spear, piercing the creature's chest, and Maurice flung his flail, severing another tentacle, hoping to weaken it further. Clover let loose a volley of arrows for the beast's eyes and then swung her axe again, chopping off two more tentacles in one stroke.

When they were absolutely sure that the demonic creature no longer moved, they gathered around Karl; he looked up at them, trying to focus on their faces through the dizzy veil of pain which rolled up from his leg and clouded his vision. They tried to talk to him, but he couldn't find the strength to utter a word; then they grabbed him by the paws and tried to drag him off the field. But the witch wouldn't let them spoil her victory.

" _Come, Harpies!_ " she intoned, summoning her demonic servants again, " _Bring destruction to all that has form, stillness to all that moves, despair to all who live!_ "

At her words wind began to howl and glowing butterflies began to whirl about them, reassembling into bizarre new shapes, and soon swarms of Harpies came down on them like lightning bolts.

"Oh, no!" At their sight Julien dropped his spear and hid behind Maurice's back. "Not those horrible… _things_ again!" He and Maurice clung to each other, tails curling around each other's waists, but Clover was there to protect them.

"I've won the Tournament of the Doomed – I can well take on a demon!" she muttered, "Get behind me, Your Majesty!"

– And she leapt right at the first Harpy, but the creature swept off into the sky, protesting loudly. Brutish features gleaming with malignity, it stared at Clover as golden light pooled inside its paws, growing brighter and stronger, and soon it was shooting jagged bolts of energy at the lemur girl from above. Two other Harpies joined the first one in doing so – however, highly skilled in hand-to-hand combat as she was, Clover evaded all the attacks with ease. She kicked one in the throat and another in the gut and felt the chill fingers of the third clawing at her back. She dropped and rolled and snapped the demon's neck, and the body dissolved into a dark, oily slick that oozed away slowly.

She jumped back to her feet when Julien's cry ripped through the night – one of the creatures had snatched him by the tail and was trying to lift him up in the air. But Maurice was there to hold him – they were clutching each other's paws fiercely as Maurice leaned with all his weight against the upward pull.

Clover grabbed the spear her king had dropped and hurried towards them, came up in a single bound and, with a brutal thrust, drove the spear beneath the creature's chin and up into its brain. Blood gushed over her wrist as the demon dropped to the ground, wings flapping uselessly. She retracted the spear, and the creature toppled to the ground – a faint cackle left the Harpy's lungs when, just like the other creature, it fully melted away into a puddle of black ooze.

Hanging on to consciousness by a giddy thread, Karl crept over and reached out his shaky paw for his wand – the three lemurs displayed a fighting spirit equal to his own and would keep the witch's servants busy until he would've managed a healing spell. He clutched the wand in his healthy paw and, compressing it between his thumb and forefinger, waved it over the wound. A beam of light, hair-thin, shone down at his injured leg. The wand began humming; its pitch rose and fell, almost musically, above a low buzzing. His leg tingled. He swept the beam back and forth across the wound. Deep inside the gash, tissues sewed themselves together, and the poison in his veins dissipated. He felt his vertigo fade and got to his feet.

Clover and the others were doing well in battling the Harpies, but he knew that sooner or later they were going to lose against creatures with such superior magical prowess, so he better saw to it that they got rid of those demons quickly.

" _Arise, Ghouls! Drive these disciples of the underworld back into the darkness where they belong!_ "

A fountain of silver burst forth from his own wand now, and the earth began to shake; bony fingers clawed their way up from the dirt, and moments later hordes of Ghouls were swarming the canyon – his own army of magical minions, in no way inferior to Seven's Harpies. From out of the deepest, darkest place of the underworld they seemed to come, their bodies reeking, their faces leering like evil circus clowns with ghastly smiles showing rows of sharp teeth. Their fury filled the night with eerie growls and ghostly snarls. Their bodies were so hideously malformed and stripped of any flesh, stained with mud and crawling with white worms, that it was hard to tell whether they resembled any animal at all. They advanced quickly at a full charge, their tall bodies hunched over, their long arms dragging across the stony ground.

Seven gaped in horror as the Ghouls formed a circle in the middle of the canyon; bony hands grabbed bony hands, and then they began to dance: the shadowy figures moved in and out of the moonlight, bending awkwardly, their legs shuffling stiffly. Hideous grins distorted their broken, decayed faces. And as they danced, the earth within their circle split into a bottomless pit, and the Harpies were drawn towards it, floating towards it, the suction of the spell sending them plummeting downward into the open space below.

" _Noooo!_ " Seven wailed; her cry rose and fell on the wind. She grabbed her wand and responded with a spell that would've dispersed any mortal into harmless dust – but the Ghouls deflected her blows with their bodies, flickering as she fired away at their spectral forms. An invisible force was pulling down more and more of her servants, and as soon as all of them had been sucked in, the Ghouls closed the earth back up, eliminating all the Harpies that were in its crevice. When that was done Karl swung his wand toward the assembled group of his minions, pulling them into the energy of another spell, and in moments, they dispersed into a black fog drifting off into the dark.

With all their minions gone, the two magicians were facing each other alone again.

"Hey, was this your last move? I'm counting on you to use all your strength!" Karl teased the witch, though with more casualness than he actually felt, "Really, I thought your Harpies could do better than that."

A flush of anger rose in her cheeks, and she was clutching her wand so hard that for a moment he thought she was going to throw it to the ground and stomp it.

"My turn isn't over yet," she then announced dramatically, "This is only the beginning!"

Seven waved her wand in a complex wide arc across the canyon, and Karl hadn't realized he was standing on a broken part of one of the wooden half-pipes of the crushed waterslides until the witch's spell caused those parts to assume a new form once again. But this time they didn't turn into snakes or other abhorrent creatures – this time they were turning into golden chariots with streaks of fire running jagged through their sides.

Climbing into another chariot across from his, Seven cackled at his obvious bewilderment.

"Oh Karl, my dear old foe, I bid you heartlessly welcome to my circus of horror! – And what a show I have for you tonight!"

With another wave of her wand she set the chariots into motion, sent them spinning around and around, like a madly whirling carousel out of control.

Karl tried to get out immediately but was unable to; his chariot was already moving too fast to jump off. He kept trying, struggling fiercely, horror beginning to spread through him – there was nothing to be done to slow them down. Already he could feel the buildup of energy as they kept spinning madly – the chariots were now forming a complete carousel, acting as if they were suspended from chains and whirling faster and faster. But instead of being forced outward by the centrifugal force they were dragged inward by a dark energy that began to rise in the middle of the carousel – a cloud, spinning just as fast, sweeping at both opponents with the force of a tempest, sucking them in like a churning maelstrom. Streaks of fire were flashing through that cloud, threatening to exterminate the life of any being that dared come too close to that chasm of dark force.

Karl clung to the handrail of his chariot as it swung so hard and fast that it tilted to the side, suspending him out over the roaring abyss. As he kept whirling madly he cursed his opponent, who was riding the chariot across from him – if the witch had the opportunity to demonstrate her powers, she always had to make a show of it! And now she had managed to raise their duel to a whole new level: the challenge consisted in trying to free oneself from the insidious pull of energy while at the same time, with the help of another spell, keeping the other sorcerer from doing so. It was a test that put maximum strain on both their offensive and defensive capabilities. Whoever got sucked into oblivion first would lose the duel – and the winner would be the only one who would finish it alive.

"You'll go down first, Karl! – This time I'll crush you, kill you, and turn you to dust!" – He could hear Seven's shrill voice cut through the destructive noise of the wildly gyrating energy field. – "You should've known better than to mess with me here at midnight, my strongest hour! Twelve chimes from my grandfather clock – thirteen chimes on a dead man's clock! Soon the Sky Spirits will toll your death-knell!"

She was bluffing for sure; yet there was something in those words that triggered a frisson of fear in him. So far they'd only been fooling around, but this was a spell worthy of her reputation – while during the entire time he'd never doubted for a second that he could beat her minions easily, he wasn't so sure about this now. This was a spell more complex than any he knew; he had no idea how to stop it or what he was supposed to do to come out of it in one piece. _I didn't even mean to take this fight to the death…!_

"As I would expect from you, Yasu," he mocked, "If you do something, you always do it big!" – His face, however, clearly betrayed uneasiness; he couldn't help but stare into the gaping center of the whirlwind with frightened eyes. The sides of it slanted inward at a forty-five degree angle, and a deep howl rose from the whirling chasm, growing louder and louder until it seemed to Karl that the entire world must crumble to pieces from the intensity of the vibrations. He looked for the lemurs, but they were hiding, and he wouldn't have known either how they could've helped him now.

The dark cloud rose, quickly building toward its full fury. Karl and Seven circled each other at breakneck speed, spinning round and round, increasing their speed with every revolution as they kept pointing their wands at each other, locked in the spells they were casting at each other.

"Stop the carousel, Yasu!" Karl yelled, "This is going too far!"

"Not until I have the last Moon Pearl from you."

"Why do you want it anyway?" – The noise of the maelstrom nearly swallowed his voice. – "Look what happened to you the first time you tried that spell – wasn't that enough?!"

"I may have failed the first time, but I won't fail again. I will be the first witch who is mighty enough to make it… and then I will teach you of the passion that starts the instant you surpass the bounds of animals and make you see how wide your world stretches! I'll have you admit I'm the most powerful witch that ever existed; just you wait and see, Karl!"

Seven pressed her advantage, letting herself voluntarily be dragged closer to the center so she could target Karl more easily. She was so close he could see the fury blazing in her eyes as the airstream pummeled into her and whipped her black curls across her face. Her spell was pulling hard on him.

"You know, you've always had the most vicious of fantasies. What would happen to animalhood if you were to obtain such power? – You'd create a world filled with darkness, filled with conflict, filled with pain and despair! – Just like you've done it with Madagascar and all its citizens!"

Spinning round and round and round in an endless circle, the two chariots were dragged deeper and deeper into each trough of a new wave of dark force.

"I know you were fighting those lemurs, too – so why do you keep getting in my way now?!" Seven hissed.

"Because Madagascar is _my_ home, too – and I'm definitely more comfortable fighting Julien for the throne than the two of you!"

The center of the maelstrom was increasingly obscured by strikes of white lightning that were thrown off the lip of the funnel. Lashes of fiery darkness beat down like whips, and streams of night swirled around them as they kept spiraling around the rim.

"What makes you think I'd care about that? Just die already! How long are you going to resist?! Give up and die, Karl!"

They slipped in and out of shadow, appearing and disappearing and reappearing as they kept fighting, clutching their wands in tight-clenched paws. Karl held on like a fever-mad drunk, swaying with the motion of the chariot and slumping against its walls over and over again, doing his best to ignore the pain that was starting to mount everywhere within his body. "You mad woman! Stop this insane game now, or we're both done for!"

He felt his back and legs burn from the exhaustion of holding on. His lungs stabbed. Even if she stopped casting spells on him and let him go now, he didn't know if he'd still have the power to overcome the maelstrom's dreadful strength and pull himself free. He felt he couldn't hold out much longer, and he was pretty sure that Seven was feeling the same, but of course she'd never admit she'd lost control over her own spell.

"Never!" – Her voice betrayed her exhaustion; she, too, was at the end of her strength – yet too stubborn to give up. "I'll beat you to death, mash you and crush you until I'll make you regret being born!"

Karl prayed for the midnight hour to be over soon, but it wouldn't be. So he kept holding on for dear life – the wood of the handrail was streaked with blood where his skin had blistered and torn. And then his strength failed him – when he was lifted up into the dark whirlwind, he saw Seven flying there, too, and yelled at her at the top of his lungs, "You fool! You maniac! You've already challenged the gods once and lost –!"

Just then the darkness was interrupted by a flash of light and an ear-piercing bang – an explosion rocked the whole canyon. It put deep cracks into the ground and several walls. A giant palm tree groaned and then slowly toppled over and down into the canyon – dropping right onto the carousel. The chariots went flying; one dropped right into in one of the pools. Another landed close to the bush behind which the three lemurs were hiding. Splinters of wood became arrows and spears, knifing through the air, looking for a target.

" _Hit the deck!_ " Clover shouted at her fellows, trying to make herself heard above the tremendous noise of bombs, artillery, and grenades that now filled the air.

Maurice caught his king around the waist and yanked him down, trying to land in a protective ball. They hit the ground hard, and then all three of them threw themselves flat upon the earth as bullets rattled around them, zinging off the metal framework that was left of the water slide construction. As soon as they'd taken shelter behind a rock, their gazes flew to the sky, and their eyes widened in surprise as they saw the shapes of four planes silhouetted against the moon.

They heard the tearing screech of another bomb being tossed – the earth erupted in heat and flames where it came down. Not far from them Karl was struggling free from the broken chariot he lay buried under. He gave a wave of his arm across his body, erecting a shield all around him in order to block the stunning force of the next explosion and deflect it.

However, there was none – he and the three lemurs were safe; even from the distance they were, they could see that those planes weren't trying to attack them but were clearly chasing the witch, attempting to end this duel to Karl's advantage.

Karl wondered what this was about.

His gaze flickered across the battlefield – a haze of greenish smoke was hovering over the scene. Of the carousel itself nothing remained but dust, dirt, and debris. The maelstrom was gone; as soon as the carousel had been destroyed, it had begun dissipating and then died down completely.

Karl looked for his opponent. Seven was standing motionless amid the chaos, staring up at the four aircrafts. Karl could tell from the puzzled look on her face that she had never seen a jet plane in her life – nor witnessed the explosion of a bomb only a few feet away from her. She raised her wand against the lead bomber who came diving for her again, and another bomb fell – this time the leading plane was so low that they clearly saw the bomb falling out. Then they heard that harsh whistle again – the bomb missed Seven only a few feet, dropping into a pool next to her. Water splashed all over her, and a huge wave knocked her down on her paws and knees – her wand slipped from her fingers. Before she could get up and grab it again another explosion followed, even closer to her than the first one – Karl could see the scared look in her eyes when she turned on her heels and fled.

A series of staccato explosions followed when the witch scurried back to where the waterslides had been, swiftly dashing forward to take cover in a patch of scrub as a shower of grenades came down behind her, ricocheting off the ground she had just covered. All four pilots seemed to have her in their electronic sights now – before she could reach the shelter of the scrub it was blown up by another bomb.

Karl watched as she scrambled up the framework of the slides, trying to get out of the canyon, but it poorly supported her, the rails wobbling and eventually breaking under her.

All around the explosions kept coming. Weakened by the choking haze of smoke and dust, she began to falter – Karl could see how she began conjuring up a spell that would change her form back into a swarm of golden butterflies, so she could just fly up and out of the canyon easily. However, she wasn't done yet when a rocket came in so fast it was ahead of its sound. She had no time to roll out of the way. It hit exactly in front of her. The spell failed – a couple of butterflies were turned to ashes by the explosion, and when the witch's original form flickered and reappeared, her long, ragged cry of pain echoed through the night.

Karl knew that by now he could call himself the undisputed winner of this duel.

Strangely enough, he didn't even think about it now. Strangely enough, he didn't like what was happening, not one bit.

 _Don't let yourself be tricked into pitying her – you're only going to regret it later!_ he told himself over and over, yet couldn't avert his eyes from the terrible sight that made his stomach knot with dismay: the detonation blast had picked Seven up and thrown her to the ground like a rag doll where she now lay writhing, gasping frantically for breath. Blood was pooling under her head; her scant breaths gurgled. Fur and skin had been flayed off her right arm and paw; she curled into a ball, trying to protect her face with her other arm instead, trying to catch her breath, but she couldn't. She screamed, but no sound came out – all that passed her lips were bubbles of blood.

Overhead the leading plane was coming in again, ready to rip her into gobbets of bloody flesh with the next attack –

That was when Karl decided to end things.

" _Cease fire!_ " he yelled as he ran forward, facing the plane as he put his body between it and Seven. The lemurs were yelling something at him, but he couldn't hear it over the noise of the engine – they were probably cursing him, but not so bitterly as he cursed himself and whatever it was that made him do _this_ when he should've been fighting her.

The plane waved off. For a moment everything was silent.

Nobody shot. Nobody spoke. Then Seven staggered toward him, shaking all over, eyes wide and terrified. Her mouth, one side of her face, and one paw were thickly covered with blood. Faint with pain and loss of blood she collapsed into his arms.

"Yasu…!" Karl held her close, and when he turned to face his three allies again, his eyes were suddenly blazing with anger. "That wasn't part of the deal, Julien! This was meant to be a duel in the knowledge of magic, not a military campaign – it was _my_ challenge, and I could've very well finished this on my own! If I had wanted the support of your killing machines, I would've asked for it, fool!"

Then he waved his wand one final time, performing the very same spell Julien had ever seen him do, a long time ago in his bedroom – for a moment things went dark and then grew bright again, and the three lemurs found themselves alone in the destroyed water park.

The witch and the fanaloka were gone.

* * *

Julien, Maurice, and Clover stared at the spot where the two opponents had vanished, trying to make sense of what had just happened. Then they got to their feet, brushing dust off their fur.

"What now?! Where did they go?" Julien asked, "– Did Karl win? He won, right?"

Maurice shrugged, shaking ashes out of his tail. "I don't know. I sure hope so!"

– They turned their gazes up at the four aircrafts in the sky, watching as they began to descend, regrouped in a goose formation, their perfect synchronization in the air being absolutely impressive. The sight of the mighty war machines was both disturbing yet relieving at the same time – even though they weren't quite sure what to make of that surprising end of the duel, they were convinced that their appearance had protected them from the evil witch and saved Karl's life… regardless of what the fanaloka himself was thinking about it.

"Clover, I didn't know we had aerial support added as additional force to the Ringtail Guard," Julien said with surprise, but his bodyguard shook her head.

"We don't. Those planes aren't ours."

"Then who –?"

His voice was drowned out by the sound of the engines as the four aircrafts were coming in close. Precisely at the same time, only inches away from each other, they settled down right there in the canyon, the lead bomber a little ahead of the others – and the three lemurs almost shouted out with joy when they recognized the New York license plate under the jet fighter's nose.


	11. Chapter 10 - Tea Party

**A/N:** _Here's a bit more because I'll be without Internet for the next two weeks. Be right back after that!_

* * *

CHAPTER 10

 **TEA PARTY**

The four planes rolled to a stop. The penguins unstrapped themselves and popped the Plexiglas canopies open, jumping down to the ground as the three lemurs came running toward them, and what followed was a very happy reunion.

"It's good to see you again, Ringtail." Skipper gave his former neighbor a firm hug which Julien returned happily – now there was someone who would bring order out of the chaos that had been wreaked upon his island; from now on, he knew, there would be a chance for things to turn out alright after all.

"Ah, we've missed you such a lot!" Private exclaimed after he'd hugged the lemurs one by one, "At the zoo we've got new neighbors now that you're gone, you know – a team of secret agents like we are –, but they're hardly ever home…"

"– Which means we're happy every day to finally live in a peaceful neighborhood," Kowalski mumbled but then hastily cleared his throat when Private nudged him with his flipper. "– I mean, sure, we've been missing you guys like hell."

"We were beginning to wonder if you heard our call," Maurice said when he shook the leader's flipper. A faint frown creased Skipper's brow at that recollection.

"Oh, you bet we did… I did, at least. Though I'm still at a loss to understand how."

"Masikura, our fortune teller, called you with the help of a spell," Clover explained.

Skipper arched an eyebrow at that. "A spell?"

"Oh yeah, we've been experiencing a lot of magic lately," Julien sighed, "Our island has been wrecked by magic, and before you interrupted that fight I'm sure you saw what a mess it was when those two were casting spell after spell at each other –."

"Now hold up, what exactly is going on here?" Skipper asked, holding up a flipper to interrupt him, "Indeed we saw that there was one hell of a fight going on; from up there we could see a whole lot of sparks flying. But of course we assumed that those were _high-tech weapons_ … like those two were shooting electric bolts at each other in a killing frenzy, or so. We actually didn't see too well what exactly was going on, you know. We just recognized you guys and those two duelists and figured out whose side you were fighting on, and since your enemy seemed to give you a pretty hard time, we decided to, uh… even up the odds a little."

Kowalski and Rico nodded their agreement. Only Private pouted.

"But I told you guys that when we were over that canyon I saw a flying lemur…"

"You don't count, Private. You see flying horses all the time, too."

"I assure you it's magic, guys," Clover interrupted their brotherly banter with a sad smile, "Clemson conquered our island with the help of witchcraft and made himself the new King of Madagascar, just as he's wanted to do for so long. And he did all that in one night – he couldn't have mastered that feat in any other way except with the help of supernatural powers!"

Skipper shared a surprised look with his second-in-command.

"I wouldn't have expected someone like Clemson to turn from a scientist into a wizard," the tall penguin said, voicing their mutual thoughts.

"He hasn't. He freed a witch who's been banned from our people some years ago, and now she's working for him – they call her Seven, Seven the Golden Lemur. It's the very same witch you chased off with your bombs and rockets a moment ago!"

"What, that little lemur girl? – If she really had supernatural powers, it was pretty easy to impress her with something as natural as our artillery!" Skipper laughed.

"Maybe Seven is still a young witch who isn't fully educated yet and therefore had a hard time dealing with something as strong as a jet fighter squadron," Private pointed out, but the leader wasn't convinced.

"Sounds a little far-fetched to me."

"No, I believe he could be right," Maurice opined, "Remember what Karl said before…"

The penguins looked at each other. "Who's Karl?"

"Her opponent... the fanaloka we were trying to help win that duel," Julien explained, "He's our enemy actually, my rival for Madagascar's throne. But lately we kind of decided to team up in order to get rid of Clemson and the witch more easily."

"I see." Skipper nodded. "So where's your… 'frenemy' now?"

"We don't know! He just disappeared with the witch after you'd attacked her; we don't know why or where they went."

Clover frowned. "Yeah, and why was he getting edgy like that when you guys started to interfere? He should be glad you helped him win against her!"

"They were actually fighting each other for a magical artifact… a pearl of some kind," Maurice explained to the penguins, "So wherever they're now, let's just hope Karl won't let it get into the witch's paws…!"

"He disappeared with the enemy? Very suspicious!" Skipper declared, "Maybe you should've chosen your allies more carefully."

"Well, there aren't exactly so many around here who are adept in battling a witch!" Julien explained, "In fact, there's only one other animal I could think of – our fortune teller –, and she's not here."

"Why not, actually – where the hell is Masikura?" Clover asked her fellow lemurs, "Hasn't anyone seen her lately?" – But Julien and Maurice shook their heads, clueless.

"Not since we performed that spell together to call the penguins," said Maurice; turning to them, he explained, "Usually she appears when you call her name or think of her, but now it seems she, uh… doesn't quite feel like supporting us at the moment."

"We really could use her help, though," Julien added, "She's a lot more trustworthy than Karl. She could have just battled the witch in his stead… We don't know how much she knows about magic, but given the fact that she's in constant mental connection with the Sky Gods, I guess it isn't that little. Maybe she would've won a duel like that one easily!"

A dark frown creased the penguin leader's sharp features. "Are you sure that lady isn't enmeshed in something there, along with the other two? – Something that's… well, let's say, _not too good_ for you?"

"Not Masikura!" The king resolutely crossed his arms over his chest. "I've got to admit I'm not so sure about Karl, especially now that he just skedaddled like that… but not her. I've known her long enough to be absolutely sure we can trust her no matter what!"

"Alright, if you say so…" Skipper began pacing up and down in front of them, thoughtfully reviewing every piece of information they'd been given. "Well, then what are we going to do now? Have you made a plan yet how to get your island back?"

"Maybe a useful first step would be, I don't know… erecting some kind of anti-magic barrier around the village to protect the people," Clover suggested. She gazed up at the moon that was high overhead. "Midnight is over, so according to Karl the witch should be powerless for the next twenty-three hours. That means we do have some time to get at that."

"An anti-magic barrier…? Kowalski, do you have any options for such a thing?" Skipper asked.

The tall penguin moved a couple of pearls from one side of his abacus to the other but then lowered the bamboo frame, shaking his head slowly.

"Perhaps I could suggest something there, Sir," Clover interfered.

Skipper nodded in her direction. "Go ahead."

She pulled out a couple of what looked like jade pendants and showed them to the penguins. They recognized a small figure that was engraved in each of them; it resembled the Scorpio zodiac sign.

"Those are lucky charms… Apparently they're able to block magic. Karl hung them up around his territory in order to protect himself from the witch's power; that's where I got them from," Clover explained, "If we distribute them around the village, the witch shouldn't be able to harm us. The only problem is that Karl's territory is a lot smaller than the lemur village, so there will hardly be enough of them to protect the whole village, let alone the other kingdoms on this island."

The penguins passed the little pendants from flipper to flipper, not knowing what to say.

– "I still have a hard time believing that we're really dealing with magic here," Skipper muttered, more to himself than to the others.

Moving a little closer to the leader, Kowalski muttered behind his flipper, "To be honest, if we hadn't seen with our own eyes what a post-apocalyptic wasteland this island's been turned into when we overflew it before, I'd say the whole thing sounds ridiculous. After all, science negates even the possibility of magic!"

"Yeah, besides we could be dealing with something completely different which we haven't yet taken into consideration at all… like, a space squid invasion!"

"But guys, think about Darla and the baboons," Private reminded them, "Some animals seem to be able to deal with magic after all!" – With a slight grin directed at his leader he added, "Back then you admitted yourself that magic is real, didn't you, Skipper."

Skipper stared at him for the longest while; then he relented.

"Alright, alright… then let's assume we're indeed dealing with a mad lemur and a full-tilt witch. – We have to think well and fast about how to proceed." – Looking at Clover, he added, "How much time did you say we have?"

"Twenty-three hours, Sir," she repeated, "Well, a little less now, I guess."

"Why twenty-three hours? Why would the witch's range of action be limited to that specific time period?"

"Unknown, Sir. It had something to do with a spell that went wrong, but Karl didn't explain that point further."

"Are you sure the information can be trusted?" – The three lemurs looked at each other, then nodded. – "Mh, that should be enough time to come up with something useful. It has to be enough. Unless the witch doesn't return the next night – but I guess Clemson will see to that, won't he?" – They nodded again.

"Yes, very likely. If Karl told us the truth and something went wrong with a spell that should've actually given her permanent power, then Clemson will surely use every opportunity to make her demonstrate her strength in order to maintain his control over the people. You know, so they won't get any wrong ideas to rebel against him the other day."

Skipper nodded slowly. "And where's that psychotic mad lemur now?"

"Probably still in the old castle in the north of the island, in which he proclaimed himself the new King of Madagascar," Julien guessed, and Maurice nodded, too.

"A castle? Alright, let me think…" – The leader ran his flipper thoughtfully over the bridge of his beak. – "We all know that according to General Shingen's theories of military strategy, the best defense is a good offense. So what do you say we just turn the tables on them? There's not much else we can do – any line of defense we could erect in order to guard our position against the enemy could easily be torn down or overcome by magic. That means we've got to come up with something that'll keep the witch busy – for example, if his castle came down, don't you think Clemson would first tell her to use her powers to rebuild it instead of sending her out to cause more destruction across the island?"

"You mean –?"

"Exactly, Private. What did we bring our air fleet for?!" Now there was a keen, combative gleam in Skipper's eyes and no trace of hesitation in his voice. – "We're going to take that castle down; and then let's see if the witch manages to restore that entire building in less than an hour and still feels like putting more voodoo on everybody. – Judging from how fast she skedaddled when we started firing away at her, I bet that's not going to happen!"

While Julien and Maurice were looking rather worried, Clover clenched her paws into fists, eyes brimming with anticipation and a wild desire to fight. "That's an absolutely amazing idea!"

Skipper smiled. "Can you fly a plane?"

"Yes, Sir!" She threw her shoulders back, saluting proudly. "I just haven't had the chance to pilot one so often."

"Well, you'll have plenty of time to practice your piloting skills tonight, soldier. Because you're going to fly my plane – you and my men are going to conduct an air combat operation against Clemson's castle. Give it all you got – no holds barred! Fire until your consoles are too hot to handle, until you're out of ammo – just make sure you bring that castle down! Make sure not a single wall of Clemson's castle remains standing, nor even one brick upon another! We've got a kingdom to save here!" – Now Julien and Maurice were smiling, too. "– Kowalski, you have the lead."

"Aye, aye, Skipper."

"– And the two of you are going to distribute those charms around the village… for all the good that'll do."

"Got it." – Maurice and Julien left, and Kowalski and Rico were already belly-sliding off as well, with Clover hot on their heels. Only Private stayed behind, looking up at the leader with questioning eyes.

"And where will you be, Skipper?"

"Well, General Shingen also wrote that 'in order to defeat one's enemy, one must first know one's enemy'! So I'll try to get some more information on that witch… I want to know exactly who and what we're dealing with here." He gave the rookie a reassuring smile. "And I think I know someone who can help us with that."

* * *

"Are you even interested in winning?"

Karl crossed his arms in front of his chest with a triumphant look on his face. Then he captured Seven's black rook at C6 with his queen.

They were sitting across from each other at the long banquet table in his airship, floating somewhere above the clouds, far above the island and everything that was going on there.

They'd been playing chess for about two hours now, surrounded by glowing candles, soft violin music playing in the background, and the scent of freshly brewed coffee permeating the air.

She snorted. "What are you saying! I'll get you yet! The way you've clustered your pieces in a protective shield about your king – that position cries for a smothered mate!"

"I'm not talking about _that_ game." – White bishop to king four. – "You and I both know you could've done way better than you did. Are you even genuinely interested in beating me for that Moon Peal – have you ever been, for one minute, when we dueled? Because the way you fought today – that's not how I know you. First you keep messing around and then you come up with a spell that's beyond your or my control! When we dueled each other earlier, you used to have some kind of strategy at least…"

Seven paused for a moment and reconsidered, clearly distracted by his words. Then she frowned darkly. "Maybe _you_ should tell me first what's behind _your_ strategy of saving me and even taking me to your home when you should be celebrating that four fighter planes blew me to bits!" – Black pawn to queen's third square.

"You know I would've never let that duel end in death for either of us. I wanted this to be a fair fight. I have no idea where those planes come from and who they are, but if you think I'd take advantage of you after they've put you in that condition, you should be thrown back down the canyon and left to the crows."

Karl looked at the lemur girl sitting opposite from him. Her face wasn't as swollen anymore, but the bruises were still purple, and the wound looked a little nasty. Her bandaged right paw was resting on her lap, and she was moving the chess pieces with the left one. He'd already chanted three healing spells on her and one she had done on her own, but after that duel they were both at the end of their physical and magical strength, so she'd just have to wait for the rest to heal in a natural way.

– "I have to say I'm quite glad things ended up this way. We haven't even had time to properly say hello to each other after all these years. You just came crashing back into my life so suddenly…"

She gave him a warning look. "Don't you even dare start on this."

"Alright, alright." He took a sip from his coffee cup standing next to him beside the chess board, returning to the former topic. "Tell me – what do you even gain from your alliance with that red lemur anyway?"

"But you know that already; why do you even ask? He was the one who freed me from the ban! So it's only fair I'm helping him rule over Madagascar now."

Karl took her knight off the board, holding the piece up to the light for a moment. The pale marble glowed, translucent and alive with hinted streaks of color in its depth.

"You know, I, too, dream of ruling this island – but never in my wildest dreams would I rule it with such horror and cruelty as you and Clemson have unleashed on everyone living here! You're taking animal lives like they're pieces on a chess board! Tell me – what's the point of ruling over a realm filled with only heaps of dead and dying, ghastly and mutilated carcasses, and rushing torrents of foaming blood?!"

Seven frowned, not only at the loss of her knight. Then she shrugged. "A good ruler must teach his people to respect him. Within two days Clemson gained more control over this island than Julien in all the years of his reign, so you can't deny that he is a good king!"

Karl leaned forward in his seat, gripping both sides of the table. "He's a fool who has no idea of magic, much less of dealing with the power he's gained! Didn't you just make him king of the entire island? – And yet he keeps asking you for more and more! Ruling Madagascar isn't enough for him, huh – so what's next? Ruling over life and death?" – He got up, suddenly upset about Clemson and about Seven purposefully ignoring his efforts to change her point of view on him. – "What is it really about that Moon Pearl? I bet that if he'd left you a choice, you wouldn't dream of repeating that spell! You're doing that only for him, aren't you."

The witch kept her silence for a while. The candlelight flickered over her face, making her eyes luminous, breaking shadows on her cheeks and fur.

"He wants me to revive the lemur I sacrificed when we sealed our alliance."

"What…?!"

Seven clenched her healthy paw into a fist. "If our grimoires say that this spell _can_ be performed, then there is a way for sure – and I'm going to find out about it!"

Karl only shook his head. "And what if you don't?" – At his concerned tone, she blinked. – "Then what's going to happen to you?"

Instead of answering him, she bent over the chessboard, making an intent study of the pieces and taking more sips from her own cup; she was having black tea instead of coffee.

"I've lost my life already. What more can happen?" she then replied quite meekly.

"Don't you see what kind of position you put yourself into?!" he countered, swinging his cup in her direction with a motion so lavishly sweeping that it almost caused the coffee to slop over the rim. "You allied with an animal who has never performed a single spell in his life, who hasn't even learned anything about the rules of magic at all. - And yet, of all animals, the only one you have no power over is him!" Now he got up and walked over to her; looking straight at her, he put his paws on her shoulders. "If you can't get him what he wants – then what is he going to do to you?"

She stared up at him with hard sardonic eyes, her nostrils flaring in distaste before she pushed him away. "Stop acting like you're worried about me," she growled, exasperated, "You never cared back then, so I don't want you to act like you care now!"

"That's not true. I –."

"Just keep your pity to yourself! That's one thing I don't need – not after all you've done to me!"

"Frank, you're tough as nails. I can't even act halfway decent to you. I give up." Karl shrugged off the rebuke, holding up his paws in mock defense.

"Well, you've got a real talent for turning things backward!" Cynicism burned in her gaze. " _You_ were the one who disappointed _me_ – hasn't it ever crossed your mind that if you'd stuck to your word, things would've turned out differently for me?!"

"Now hold up a second! I never gave you my _word_ –."

"You said we'd try the Shadow Spell together! You were just as tempted by it as I was; don't deny it!"

"I don't. But I was also the first one of us who backed away from the idea."

"Well, why did you, coward?! Hasn't it ever occurred to you that if you had stood by me, we could have actually made it – we could have had _everything_ together!" Her every word was laced with temper now, hot and furious. "You broke me! It was the second time that you broke me – not only did you mercilessly shatter my heart into pieces, but you also broke your word to me!" She gave him a penetrating look, and suddenly his heart sank when he met her wounded gaze. "I cared about you; I had trusted you, believed in you! And then I had to see that not a single thing between us was real."

Karl sat back in his chair again and sighed, massaging his temples. He thought they'd decided not to bring this up now!

"Look, Yasu, these are two completely different things. The fact that we broke up with each other had nothing to do with me not supporting you about this spell… I told you that before, and I wasn't lying when I did. I also told you that the fact that I left you had _nothing_ to do with you personally! It was merely because I had no idea myself who I was and what… what things were like. What I was like. You… you happened to be the first girl I was with. But back then we were so young… I had never even reflected about the way we'd been raised, the society around us – all that, you know. I didn't even know that there were different kinds of affection, of love. Love comes in so many ways… and I just don't feel the same way as you. But that doesn't mean –."

"– You heartless, heartless fanaloka!" she cried out in frustration, in rage, not even caring to hear the rest, "You left me for that – that _cockroach!_ Really, who would ever be weird enough to get involved into something so _unnatural_ –."

He frowned. "Unnatural? Well, who's to say what's natural and what isn't? There's absolutely nothing wrong or weird or different about it. It's taken a lot of time for me to admit it to myself as well; no one can make that easier, I guess. And then you hardly get reinforced by anyone, of course, not even by your own family. My own brother Bruce… when I tried to talk to him about it, he offered me to 'quit smoking if I quit being with guys'. But in the end I stopped hating myself for it because I realized that it's not something you can learn – it's something that you _are_ , and it won't ever change. But you, you've never understood it… you've never understood what it's like when people judge you for something you can't change. Who you love… it's like breathing, right? You don't really choose it; it just is."

She forced her gaze to meet his, and tears of frustration were running down her face. He reached out to gently wipe them off, but she shied away. He dropped his paw back with a sigh.

"I'm sorry, Yasu. But Chauncey is the love of my life, and nothing that was or is still happening between us now will ever change that." – The cockroach, who had been hiding under his chair, crawled forth when he heard his name. Karl bent over and lowered his paw, and the adorable little insect crawled around his knuckles and eventually climbed his way to the top of his finger, clinging to the talon, chin tilted up proudly. Seven threw him a look of deepest disgust.

"So maybe you could be saying that to a girl other than me, but you sure shouldn't say that about another _man –!_ "

"And why not? I've found out that this is the way I feel, the way I am. And I've learned to accept that and live with it."

"But that's – that's –!"

"Sick? Wrong? Perverted? Demented? – Oh, I've heard that before. Really, a lot of animals think like that, even though they might pretend otherwise. But Chauncey and I are past caring about that." Underlining his words, Karl nuzzled the cockroach's prothorax as Chauncey was purring into his ear.

"Well, I'm past caring about you!" – With that Seven swept her healthy arm over the chess board and cast the pieces to the floor. One of the knights broke in half, forever separated from his stallion. The broken piece gleamed in the sallow light. "You really haven't changed one bit from when we last met! You're still the same old charmer you always were, telling people what they want to hear so they look up to you, the 'legendary evil genius of Madagascar' or something. Seriously, I have no idea what the hell I could ever find charming about that kind of demeanor. I guess now that I'm no longer blinded by love, I can see through your lies easily – and nothing you tell me now will keep me from realizing what a weird, cantankerous entity outside of animal society you really are. – So I'm warning you: I have means of making things go my and Clemson's way, and I sure won't take another lesson from a skygoddamn _queer_ like you!"

– She spat these last words at him as if they were poison. Then, right there in front of their eyes, she burst into a shower of golden butterflies and was gone.

Chauncey hissed and reared back on four legs in order to cross his front appendages over his prothorax, antennas stiffening in anger.

"Don't let her upset you," Karl sighed, "It seems you just can't change the way she looks at that. Remember her reaction when I talked to her about us for the first time… _'Men marry women – end of story'_. We've tried to change her mind about it so often. But she's got her own thoughts on this subject, and it seems that this is simply inacceptable to her... You know there's a lot of animals that think like her, so don't worry about this anymore." – Chauncey nodded sadly. – "Ah, I could've guessed that we'd get into dispute about that again! The only reason why I really would've wished to avoid that were our… 'negotiations' concerning Madagascar's fate."

Chauncey hissed a worried response, and he nodded thoughtfully.

"Frank, I really wish she would've listened! If she doesn't reconsider her alliance with that red lemur, I can't help but feel quite gloomy about the future of this island." – But Chauncey patted his shoulder in a quietening gesture and spread his wings a bit, revealing the Moon Pearl he still kept hidden underneath them. Then he hissed something into the fanaloka's ear that brought a pensive expression to Karl's face.

"You're right… As long as she doesn't get this one in her pretty fingers, there's still hope. But I'm not sure if without the help of those… jet fighters, whoever they were, I could've actually beaten her. I can't keep this pearl safe enough, and we sure as hell can't risk losing it to her. Let's put it into the hands of a mightier magician then, shall we?" Karl reached for the steering rudder, changing the direction of the airship's drift.

– "I'm sure my old teacher will guard it well."

* * *

"What the hell is that about?!"

Back in the castle Clemson sat in his study observing the progress of the magic duel through a crystal ball Seven had given him. He'd just watched the witch collapse in the arms of her opponent; then the image inside the crystal ball went black and then bright again and then they'd both disappeared. Now all he saw in the crystal ball was the empty water park.

"Show me Seven," he commanded; the crystal ball began to vibrate and crack, revealing a light beneath its surface. A meager amount of smoke began to flow from the ball; when the smoke diminished, he saw the empty canyon again, but Karl and Seven still weren't there. He didn't know how to judge this; had the crystal ball ceased working or had Karl and the witch just conjured themselves away for some reason? He called for Faraday but received no answer from the servant, so he left the study to look for him.

"Faraday!" he called; his voice echoed in the empty, twisting castle corridors. "Faraday!"

He continued through the dark passageways into the throne room. He didn't meet anyone on the whole way there. The room was completely empty – but when he looked across to the opposite wall, he could see that the woven red curtain was drawn up a bit. A band of gray light shone below the embroidered hem. Suddenly there was a hollow, dark feeling rising inside of him...

He walked closer as if in a trance, a blank stare on his face. His paw shook as he reached out for the curtain and drew it aside –

Behind it was the same room the alliance ritual had been conducted in earlier.

Now it was empty – except for the apparatus in which Mea had been sacrificed.

Clemson began to walk towards it, step by leaden step, feeling the irregular thump of a headache beginning at his temples. He couldn't do anything but stare at the massive lemur-sized coffin that dominated the room… and must without doubt hold the body of the lemur he'd loved. He was in there, Clemson imagined, he had to be inside. He pressed his paw against the silky, lacquered wood and held it there for a moment. He was so close to him, yet he was so far away, forever removed…

And suddenly he realized that no kingdom in the world could make up for that kind of grief.

 _He's dead_. He bit his lip, closing his eyes as the unvoiced thought echoed inside him. _He'll never come back._ This realization sunk deeply, deeply into his soul. He could feel the strain of anguish written in his expression. … _No, it can't be –!_

But it was. The horrible truth crashed down on him, and for a moment he couldn't breathe.

 _No matter how this ends, we're going to be together again in the end_ , the android had told him, just before the ritual had begun.

– _Well, look how that turned out…!_ he thought bitterly. Because what chance did he really have of seeing Mea again now? After all he'd seen from her, how likely was it that Seven actually managed to ever bring him back to life, really? And if she didn't –?

… _Then what? What am I going to do?!_ His breath was frosty in the dimming light. Never before had he seen things about his alliance with the witch so clear and terribly real as he did then. He breathed for a moment, shutting his eyes, trying not to panic.

"What are you doing here?"

He flinched and turned around to see a Harpy standing behind him, a cup of tea in its paw, head cocked to the side curiously. He found himself desperately scrambling for words.

"I, uh… I was looking…"

"– At this?" The demon nodded its head toward the torture device. "Oh yes, a remarkable piece of apparatus, isn't it."

 _Remarkable for the sheer grotesquerie of its violence –!_ Clemson thought, but the Harpy stepped forward and then talked to him about the torture device as casually as if it were explaining something to a backward child lemur. "– Here, see for yourself."

With its free paw the demon opened the coffin lid with a metallic rattle, which sounded to Clemson like a stir of bones in a crypt. His heart stopped for a moment, but the velvet bed inside was empty; the machine was freshly cleaned, except for the rust stains on the vicious, inward-pointing needles on the metallic grid attached to the back of the door.

"You see, the victim is laid out here on the bed. There are straps for the paws here, for the feet here, and for the throat here, to tie the animal in securely. As soon as that's done, the bulbs can be set in motion from outside; they move this part inside here that looks like the grid of a harrow. The needles are arranged as in a harrow, you see, and the whole thing is driven like a harrow, although it stays in one place, of course. When the harrow is set to work from outside, it drives needles into the victim's eyes and torso. The whole process takes only about ten minutes." The Harpy paused to take a sip of its tea.

– "Do you understand the process? The harrow starts stabbing, driving a multitude of needles into the body, and simultaneously the bed starts lifting the body up into the needles. For the first two minutes the victim goes on living almost as before. The animal suffers nothing but pain. The bulbs get squeezed tighter and tighter until the pressure is crushing the bones and the veins burst through the skin; that's when the body's inner fluids, the blood, is forced out." – The Harpy pointed at a connecting rod. – "Blood flows out in hundreds of streams and is then channeled here in small grooves and finally flows into the outlet pipe which takes it to that cauldron over here, from where we drink it. After another five minutes of that procedure the victim has no more energy for screaming; believe me, I don't know of a single one, and I've had a lot of experience. But of course it has to go on until the very end…"

The Harpy raised an eyebrow at the puzzled, frightened look on Clemson's face and then waved its cup at him. "Do you know about black tea? The 'golden drop' is said to be the last and most delicious drop in black tea. So a 'golden drop' of blood is the same – the last and most precious drop of blood squeezed out of an animal. This 'golden drop' is needed from an animal to complete the ritual – it's the one thing a ghost needs to take fully over a body and materialize. This is why the ritual has to be performed like this. This is also why Seven –."

" _Stop it!_ " Clemson yelled at the Harpy, "Stop this right now! I don't want to hear any word more!" His left paw shot out and the back of it smacked the demon in the side of its face. Its head snapped back and its right paw flew out and dropped the teacup. Hot tea splashed out as the cup dropped to the marble floor and shattered.

– "Go away, you cruel, ugly, hideous bastard creature!" Clemson yelled at the demon at the top of his lungs, "Go back to the hell you've been summoned from and never appear in front of me again!" The Harpy stared at him for a moment with a startled look on its face. Then it obeyed immediately.

"Yes, Your Majesty." – And it burst into a shower of gold and was gone.

Clemson was alone again – there was no sound, nothing but the horrible, lurching beat of his own heart. It was whamming frightfully in his chest when he looked at the apparatus again. He kept staring at it for a long, immobile second. He could taste his terror now; he raised a shaky paw to his mouth in an attempt to stifle the sudden sob that burst from his chest. They called him a cruel lemur, he knew; but he'd never done things like that, never like that. Suddenly he felt dizzy, the world spinning around him as if he'd chugged buckets of liquor. Then he felt so cold that he thought he would freeze to death in seconds, as though all his blood drained from his body at one instant and poured out his feet... as if life itself was running out of his body.

Just like those monsters had sucked the life out of Mea. Consumed him. Killed him. And now there wasn't a trace of him left… nothing. Except for –

A tiny cogwheel.

It lay on one of the velvet cushions; at first it looked as though it was a part of the torture device that had come loose. But when Clemson bent down to observe it more closely, he had no doubt it was Mea's – that cogwheel was one of the android's construction parts which he'd screwed together in his dark cave in the Hoboken Zoo so long ago… He picked it up, tears flowing freely now. All of a sudden he became dimly aware of a muffled noise somewhere behind him, somewhere outside his hot and racing inner world… footsteps approaching the door or only the heartbeat in his ears –?

"King Clemson?"

He froze at the sound of the familiar voice. Then, slowly, he turned around to the witch, his mouth pressed into a frightened, bloodless slit. Seven was standing behind him, her shoulders hunched under her cloak, her wand hanging loosely from her right paw; the duel seemed to have worn her out. She gazed at his pale, tear-stricken face with wide eyes.

"Are you alright, Your Majesty?"

"Fine," he snapped, "Where have you been?!"

The young witch hung her head in shame. "I, uh… I'm very sorry, Your Majesty," she murmured, "Karl was a tougher opponent than I thought. He got unexpected help from some kind of mysterious, unknown air fleet that came to his support... So I – I couldn't…"

Clemson stepped closer to her, so close he could feel the warmth of the body she'd taken. He clenched his fists so tight his claws pierced the palms of his paws and blood began trickling down his wrists. He squeezed even tighter, savaging himself with pain.

"You couldn't beat him." – She shook her head slowly, ruefully. – "Couldn't get the last Moon Pearl." _Couldn't bring Mea back –_

"No, Your Majesty," she said, her voice high and tight, and suddenly Clemson let out an inarticulate scream of rage – he leapt at her and closed his paws around her throat, shaking her so violently she didn't have time to gasp for air. Seven struggled beneath him, her movements feeling random and desperate under the strength of his grip. She couldn't catch a deep enough breath; her screams became loud gurgles, but she didn't black out. He suddenly released her and jumped back, panting deeply as a deep racking cough shuddered through her entire body.

"But… why –," she gasped, "Why –?!"

" _You damn well know why!_ " Clemson yelled at her – "You fucking _liar!_ Why did you flatter me so much at the beginning of this alliance when you really think so little of keeping your promises to me? – Didn't I tell you to prepare yourself well for that duel? Didn't I tell you not to take it lightly? You think you know it all, and yet you keep disappointing me like that – how could you mess up something that was so important for me?! Didn't I give you everything, _everything_ , you spoiled brat – how dare you take so much from me and give so little back! – But I'm not going to let you get away with it!"

He reached out and closed his left paw on Seven's hair and lifted her up off the ground. He slapped her face twice, sweeping his right paw back and forth as he growled through clenched teeth, "I may not know much about magic, but I sure understood one thing about your wicked little witch game: with your powers you can sacrifice all the other animals around here like pawns – but I, I'm the king, the most important piece on the board. I'm your ally – the only one you have no power over, absolutely none at all! None of your monsters can force _me_ to do anything – but I can do anything I want to you! Anything I want! No one can stop me – no one can keep me from punishing you for making another promise to me you wouldn't keep!"

She screamed in fright as much as in pain when he hit her hard on the ear where he knew it hurt most. But it wasn't enough – not after she had disappointed him so.

"You're disgusting," he spit. "You think you're a powerful witch, but really you're just an arrogant little girl. You talk about becoming the mightiest sorceress alive, but really, I'm starting to believe you never could! No one could take _you_ seriously!"

He slapped her again, hard, as if to underline his words. He shook his head, his jaw working madly as he then took one step back, then another, and then stood glowering down at her.

"You know, I'm starting to think that when you tell me how powerful you are, you're just trying to be interesting. You don't even try for a moment to accept the idea that you're not what you believe yourself to be, that you overestimate yourself, in fact that you lie to yourself. Compared to other animals you may be powerful, but you're far from perfect; I don't know where you get off having that kind of arrogance. It's always the same sort of thing… even when Faraday is trying to teach you something. You never listen. You're always sorry, but you never listen – you just go on doing things your way. You don't change. All you do is getting better and better at explaining away your own errors with lame excuses." – He clenched his paws into fists. – "If I'd known all that in advance, I would've thought twice before allying myself with someone like you!"

Seven had slumped to the floor in front of him; her messed up black fur fell around her face like a curtain as tremors shook her slender frame.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry…!" she stammered over and over, trying to keep her voice from shaking. "I swear to Frank I'll make it up to you. I… I don't know how, but I will. I promise!"

Tears trickled down her cheeks, mingling with a rivulet of blood that had dribbled down to her chin from her lip.

A thin film of sweat covered Clemson's brow, and he stood with his paws on his hips as he indifferently stared at the gouge down her left cheek and the swelling around her right eye.

"Don't you get that I don't want or need any more empty words from you! – Show me you can _do_ something about it!" he yelled, his reddened face twisted with anger.

"Yes, Your Majesty," she sobbed, "Your every wish shall be done!"

"Yeah, you better hope for your own sake that you can actually see to that!" – He grabbed her by the chest fur and pulled her to her feet, hovering above her, burning eyes staring at her tearful face. "Now get away from me and don't return until you know how to bring him back to life," he ordered, his voice colder and harder than she had ever heard from him.

She nodded, staggering backwards, and then ran off, diving back through the curtain.

A moment later Clemson heard the front door slam. He waited until her steps had faded before he felt his chin tremble and fresh tears slide down his face. He pressed his paws to his eyes, making himself take deep breaths, trying to get control of himself. Quickly he wiped his tears away, trying to gather himself as he turned around to face the horrible apparatus one last time.

"I'm so sorry, Mea," he sobbed, but he knew that the android couldn't hear him.

He was gone.


	12. Chapter 11 - Spellbound

CHAPTER 11

 **SPELLBOUND**

Mort was sitting at his desk, leaning forward and meticulously painting a little figurine. Around his work space there were a few containers of different colored paints and a larger container with a few paintbrushes standing in it. When he heard a knock outside, he rubbed the excess golden paint off the brush, placed it with the others and, with a big smile on his face, jumped up to answer the door.

Just as expected, he found his new favorite visitor standing outside.

"Hi, Seven!"

"Hello, Mort." – His eyes lit up with joy when she bent down and embraced him.

However, his smile died instantly when he took a closer look at her; he realized that something was wrong, terribly wrong. The side of her face was swollen, her left eye almost swollen shut. A cut above it oozed blood; it ran into her eye, then over her cheek, and down to her neck.

"Dear Frank, what happened to you?! You look horrible! How did you get those bruises?" Mort took her by the paw and led her to the bed, and then he washed her face and treated the cut above her eye. All the while she didn't speak, only stared straight ahead without expression. – "How did you get that?" he asked again, whispering, "It's sore!"

Seven didn't answer. Her head drooped. Mort reached out and leaned forward, tentatively skimming the grip marks on her neck. She winced. "Did you fall?"

"No, I didn't." Her face contorted, and she began to cry.

Mort scurried into the kitchen, took ice cubes out of the new fridge he'd gotten from Timo lately, and wrapped them in a small leaf before he took them to his guest.

"Here, hold this ice on," he told her, and she put it on her bruises. Sitting down to face her again, he insisted urgently, "Tell me what happened! Did you have a fight with someone?"

The young witch didn't answer, but she stopped crying and just stared at the floor, her breathing heavy and labored. Her tousled fur obscured part of her face.

"Alright, who was it?"– She neither moved nor spoke. Raising his voice, Mort pressed her, "Seven, who the hell was it?!"

Her slim brows came together, and a dark scowl clouded over her features. "Clemson."

Mort blinked his eyes in astonishment, having expected any answer but that one.

"Ha! I knew they were wrong!" he exclaimed then, "Maurice and the others say that Clemson is your ally, that you're working for him and help him do evil things to the people on this island. But how could you be working for him if he does something like that to you!"

She sighed deeply. "In fact it's true. We are allied indeed, and he punished me because I failed to do what he asked me to."

Now Mort was even more confused. He stared up at her, his hazel eyes wide and sad.

"But... why?! Why are you helping someone like him? He's _evil!_ "

She nodded, her eyes staring ahead sadly. "Well, to me he didn't seem all that evil at first… at least no more than the other lemurs on this island." She shrugged slightly. "He even helped me, you know. He freed me… I've been banned from this world a long time ago, and by allying with me, he helped me return. I'm just returning the favor, you know, because I am truly grateful that he did this – or should I have been locked in this cold black castle for all eternity?!"

Mort was quiet for a moment as he considered what she'd said.

"And in return you're ready to do such cruel things for him as you did to the lemurs and all the other animals living here?" he asked tentatively.

Seven chewed on her bottom lip and then shrugged again. "I don't care about them. Not one damn bit!" Her eyes flashed. – "How in witch school they used to scoff at me and mock me! They were always jealous of me, always, because I was so much better than them. Every single day they waited for me to finally fail for the first time. And when I did, when I messed up that spell and turned into a ghost, they had their fun of course... but now it's my turn! How they hated and humiliated me – and thanks to Clemson now I've finally got the chance to turn that hate back on them tenfold! Hahahahihihaha!"

Mort clutched his tail and hid behind it; the witch's creepy cackling scared him a bit. When Seven noticed this she stopped immediately and for a moment looked at him as if after this confession she doubted that he'd continue being her friend any longer. So he quickly hopped up on the bed beside her and took her paw in his.

"I sure know what you mean," he said truthfully, "It sucks being the village weirdo all the time... Believe me; I know it from my own experience."

Her eyes widened. "What – you, too?"

He nodded slowly, gravely. "No matter what it is, or who - it seems like I'm always in the way, you know," he murmured, "When I'm out there with the others, I'm always the one who's pushed around, bullied around, ordered around wherever I go. Just because I'm not like the other lemurs... Sometimes I'm really so sick of it! When I come to a place they never say 'look, it's Mort, the one who loves to paint, who laughs a lot and bakes yummy mango pies'. They say 'look, it's Mort, the one who takes baths in his toe nail collection, who talks to himself when he thinks no one listens and can't even memorize the names of the colors he paints with'. I tried to invite some of them to tea parties and make friends with them, but no one ever came… Before I met you I've never even had a single real guest, you know."

The little mouse lemur looked over to the King Julien dummy and the plush bunny in the corner, and suddenly an overwhelming wave of sadness overcame him, a feeling of isolation and loneliness that was rooted so deep within him that no nursery rhyme could ever make it fade away. He had to swallow a couple of times before he went on, "Even King Julien despises me... I try my best to show him how much I care, but he never even seems to notice. Like when I traveled half around the globe to bring him the good book that has all the answers... but he wouldn't think for a second about thanking me, you know. Instead he just stomped on me. But I don't mind of course because I love him very much, so I usually pretend I don't care… but deep down it does hurt sometimes, you know, it really does."

Rocking back and forth, he swallowed the grief gathering in his throat. "It's always been like that, you know. I've kind of gotten used to it over the years. Half the time I don't fight it and just go along with it, so I don't get so stressed out. But I'm telling you I'm really grateful for any real friend I can find... like you, Seven."

He smiled up at the witch, deep gratitude shining in his eyes.

Seven looked at him as if she couldn't believe it. "But why?! How could they ever reject someone as cute as you! You, you haven't done a thing to anyone, not a thing! – And they're calling _me_ cruel; look how cold their hearts are! You deserve to be showered with love, to be embraced and cared for." She lifted the little mouse lemur and settled him in her lap. Mort snuggled happily against her chest fur.

"And so do you." He wrapped his bushy tail around her waist and intertwined it with hers – a gesture of mutual affection, a sign that the two of them enjoyed each other's company. "I don't care if everyone out there hates you and thinks you're nothing but a cruel, cold-hearted witch… I don't care about what you've done to them. It means the world to me that you're here with me now; that's the only thing I care about!" He reached out and engulfed her in a warm hug, which she seemed only too happy to return. She didn't shed tears, but she looked very lonely sitting there, her paws clasped tightly together in her lap.

"Thank you, Mort. You know, you really are my only true friend… I wish I could just stay with you and forget about all the rest. I want to paint some more with you and have a slumber party, like we did after we painted your home tree."

"Oh yes, that was so much fun!" Mort jumped up with joy, clapping his paws excitedly, all sadness forgotten now. "Let's do that again – let's eat sweets on the bed, mix coconut milk and mango juice, and play until we get sleepy!"

"But I can't stay with you. I have to return to Clemson and serve him."

He pouted. "But why?! He doesn't deserve being your ally! Now that he's brought you back, can't you just ditch him? – He'd sure deserve it after what he's done to you!"

"Even if I wanted, I couldn't do that," she sighed, "We were allied by a ritual... Our pact can't be broken – unless he dies or I lose my magical powers."

"Lose your powers?"

"Yes. That would be the only way to free myself from his influence. I'd have to give up being a witch and sacrifice my own powers with one last spell." She clenched her paws into fists. "But I would never do that. _Never_. Being a witch means everything to me, everything! I'd rather throw every single animal on this island into Larry's volcano with my own paws before I'd give up my magic!"

"Oh, I see."

"– And then I really don't know what's wrong with Clemson! I don't know why he's never satisfied with my services... I just made him the king of Madagascar, like he said it was his dream! Yet he must have more. Always more!" she insisted, struggling for control, but she failed, and angry words gushed out of the deep well of her disappointments before she could stop them. – "Tonight he'll have me attack Madagascar again, and he won't leave me alone with that until I finally get him what he wants. And then I'll have to perform a really mighty spell for him, and I'm not even sure I can do it... I've already tried it once before and it didn't work. Instead it ended up robbing me of my body and turning me into a ghost... So I'd rather not try it out again, you know. But I have to, if he asks for it!"

Mort shook his head fiercely. "No, you don't! You don't have to do anything for him! Why don't you just turn that evil lemur into a toad and squash him?!"

"I can't. Our pact also includes that I have power over any animal but him... that's how he could do this to me, you know." – Her fingers brushed over her bruised cheek and the strangulation marks on her neck, and she bit her lower lip. – "I'm so mad at myself for letting this happen... What a stupid choice I made to offer him my powers! If I had known in advance what a selfish, erratic, and unpredictable maniac he is, I would've never agreed to that alliance!"

"What a stupid situation… I'm so sorry I can't help you!" Mort said ruefully, "But look, I bet that pact doesn't include that you always have to be with him, does it? So just stay away from him for as long as possible, okay? I don't want him to hurt you anymore – so even if you have to serve him, you've got to give him as little chance to do that as you can!"

Her heart seemed to lighten a bit, and she let a smile cross her face. "You're right. I won't have my powers back anyway before midnight, so he can't ask anything from me before that. That means we still have the whole day to enjoy ourselves and then have that slumber party in the evening!"

"Yay! Come on, let's go outside then – let's go to the Cove of Wonders and look what we can find there and make as much of the day as we can!" Mort jumped up again and took her by the paw, and she willingly let herself be pulled out into the sunshine.

– "Let's play pirates," the little mouse lemur suggested when they were down in the cove by the seashore, picking up a piece of driftwood to use as a cutlass. "I love to play pirate, you know. I imagine I'm a swashbuckling captain, and I call myself 'Dread Pirate Mort'."

Seven looked a bit surprised at first but then smiled. "Alright. If you're the captain, then I will be the bo'sun, okay?"

"Sure! Let's go conquer the seas together, bo'sun!"

They played for a while, using a sloping rock as their boat; from there they pretended to shoot at merchant vessels and put notes in empty bottles they'd found in the cove and watched how the tide would take them to the beach. In the end Seven had to walk the imaginary plank, but she didn't mind. The salty waves washed away her dark, heavy witch makeup when she jumped into the water, and Mort thought she looked very lovely without it, just like a nice, normal lemur girl.

When they had enough of playing pirates, Mort asked her if she could teach him a little about magic, so she showed him a dance she called the _imaginary waltz_ ; she told him it was a dance often used by animals bestowed with the knowledge of magic to communicate with each other. If he sang and danced in a certain way, she said, she would be able to sense that he was trying to contact her – that way, she said, he could always call her if he needed her.

However, she also made him promise not to do this dance when other animals were around. Feeling very honored that she had shared a part of her knowledge of magic with him, Mort practiced the dance with her right away until he knew it perfectly.

Eventually they could hear voices across the cove from other visitors; Seven didn't want them to see her, so they decided to leave and go for a walk on the beach instead.

"Oooh, you have such pretty feet! They're almost as pretty as King Julien's!"

Mort watched with shining eyes when Seven dug her toes into the cool sand. Then he curled his tail around her ankles and brushed his cheeks against her sandy toes and overall made no secret of the fact that this was the greatest pleasure to him.

This made her giggle; she looked a little flustered at first but didn't kick him or push him away. By force of habit Mort withdrew anyway and apologized.

"I'm sorry; I didn't mean to touch your feet if you don't want me to…"

"Why, I don't mind if you do."

"Really?" His eyes lit up with joy. She shrugged, smiling.

"Sure, why not?" She spread her arms suddenly, as if to embrace the whole world. "The scent of the sea, the warm sand underneath my toes, the gentle breeze in my face, you touching my feet… It's all so amazing, so amazing to have a body, to be able to _feel_ again."

As they walked on she also took off her dress of baobab leaves and just left it behind right there, declaring it distinctly uncomfortable for playing in the sand and saying she wanted to feel the warmth of the sunrays on her fur. Now she looked even less like the witch everyone knew, and when they once walked past an older lemur couple, they were both greeted kindly since the two of them didn't recognize Seven. For a moment it was just as if she was part of the pack again and had never been anything or anyone else.

"It's getting a bit cold," she said when in the late afternoon the sun began setting over the tops of the palm trees. Also it wasn't quite as warm anymore as it had been the entire day; during the course of the evening the clouds had begun hanging lower and lower.

Mort nodded. "Oh, yes. Let's go home."

Dusk was turning to dark when they came back to his hut. Mort climbed up the baobab with Seven trailing behind him. The treetop was dark, but he knew his way around. His door was open so he just pranced in; Seven laughed as she watched him do so. He lit a lantern and jumped on his bed. Seven sat down next to him on the mattress, and Mort blushed under his fur when their tails accidentally touched.

"So…" he randomly said.

"So…" Seven chuckled, grinning at him, making his insides turn all warm and fluttery.

And then they started their slumber party with a big pillow fight, rolling around on the bed like they were wrestling. They laughed again until it hurt. The little mouse lemur tumbled backwards on his bed, and Seven fell next to him. Their finishing chuckles moved the bed slightly. Mort rolled on his side to look at her, and she turned to look back. Her messed up black hair dangled into her face, and her lovely yellow eyes stared back into his. She smiled at him. He smiled back and reached over to her and ever so lightly touched her bruised cheek, observing it. Then he put a paw to her neck and twirled long streaks of her fur around his fingers. She shivered and blushed a little, then started twirling his fur with her paw, too, and he laughed. Then they ate buckets of sweets and talked until they fell asleep, with taffy in their fur and eyelashes and pieces of candy on the mattress and floor.

Mort dreamed about her, warm in her arms.

Just before midnight he woke to the memory of being held by her, but now the side of the bed next to him was empty. A vertical white band of moonlight, deep and inches wide, like a luminous shaft, was streaming into the room where the curtains missed coming together. He thought she'd already left, but then he saw her standing by the door, the faint moonlight etching a silver outline around her silhouette. She opened the door silently, partway, and then slipped out, disappearing from his longing, loving look. From the hallway he could hear her steps, her soft sobbing.

He grabbed his pillow and put it over his head and buried himself into the blanket, his thoughts dark and troubled; the sadness he had felt earlier in the day came back to haunt him all of a sudden, and he felt it even more strongly now.

 _You'll pay for this, Clemson…!_

* * *

Back alone inside the cockpit of the _Maverick I,_ Skipper booted the on-board computer and activated the secure channel linking him to the North Wind Headquarters security network.

His team and the North Wind weren't in dispute anymore since they'd agreed on sharing the task of protecting animalhood and come to the conclusion that if they did so, they'd actually be able to provide safety for the animals around the globe much more efficiently than if they kept on rivaling like they had before. So they'd arranged that the penguins would be more active in the USA while the North Wind would be occupied on other continents, since due to their technically advanced equipment travelling was easier for them than it was for the penguins.

The penguin leader's flippers glided over the controls as he sent an alpha-one emergency message via the private frequency Agent Classified had installed for only the North Wind team and the penguin team to share when they had agreed to work together. Skipper still wasn't too fond of all their techno stuff about high speed and wireless networks and digital gadgets and whatnot, but he had to admit that in a situation like this, when they were stuck on an island cut off from the rest of the world, modern technology definitely had its advantages.

" _Password_ ," the mechanical voice demanded.

"Osteoporosis." – The connection was frustratingly slow. The grainy transmission flickered and then returned and finally the face of a familiar gray wolf filled the fifteen-inch screen, teal-blue eyes staring back into Skipper's. " _Is that you, penguins?_ "

– Skipper barely heard Classified's voice; there was too much background noise blaring loudly. "Yeah, this is Skipper."

" _It's great you're calling! I was about to call you._ "

"You were?" Skipper blinked his eyes in surprise, peering into the monitor at the flickering picture of the wolf's face streaming into pixels and static. Even through the grainy image he noticed a long cut running down his cheek fur from just beneath his left eye; the harsh electric light of the screen made it look morbidly red, with spots clotted dark already. In the background he could hear shots being fired and animals screaming.

He frowned. "What's going on? Are you guys alright?"

 _"Well… not really. Can you guys come to Bangladesh? A civil war has broken out here after a pack of Bengal tigers have tried to take over the Dhaka Zoo, and we're right in the middle of it. We could need some helping flippers here._ " The transmission flickered and stuttered, the slight time delay fragmenting Classified's words and chewing them up into distorted digital noise.

"Actually I was going to ask _you_ for help," Skipper tried to explain, hoping the North Wind leader could hear him, "We're stuck on Madagascar with a lemur kingdom to save and two foes that are hard to beat. We're dealing with a power-mad despot here who is supported by a witch – so the fact that he's provided with magical assistance makes him quite invincible, you know… We've beaten him several times before though, so there must be a way to beat him now!"

" _A witch?_ " Classified asked, looking at him as if he hadn't heard him correctly. Just then Short Fuse's voice cut into the conversation, announcing that they were running out of ammunition. Classified replied by curtly ordering his team to retreat.

" _We've got to head back to base and grab fresh equipment,"_ he then told Skipper, " _I'll call you right back when we're there_." He waved at the screen, and the transmission stopped.

Skipper clicked off the videophone which displayed _'Transmission terminated'_ and waited, silently hoping that their new friends would be alright.

A little later the videophone beeped again. "Answer," he said.

Corporal's chubby face appeared full screen, and his dark eyes lit up when he recognized Skipper. " _Hi there, you cuddly penguin!_ " He waved his big white paw in front of the screen before he was roughly pushed off camera by his leader. Then Classified was talking to Skipper again; his gray pelt was now brushed and shiny again, blood had stopped dripping from the gash in his cheek, and in his left paw he was holding his obligatory cup of espresso.

They appeared to be in a quiet place; the transmission was crystal clear now – Skipper could hear the familiar British accent lighten Classified's every word when the gray wolf asked him, " _So what's the situation?_ "

And Skipper told him what was going on in Madagascar.

Eva, who was taking down in shorthand everything he reported, was so surprised she stopped and lifted her wings from the keyboard for a while when he started telling them about Seven. When he had finished, she and Classified exchanged a gaze before the North Wind leader looked back at the screen, the slightest smirk playing around his whiskers.

" _Ghost lemurs and witchcraft? Excuse me, but that sounds all rather… I don't know…_ " He cleared his throat. " _The point is, magic isn't quite our specialty. How exactly do you want us to help you?_ "

Skipper raised his eyebrows. "Well, I was hoping to hear that from you. – Basically I need any information I can get on that witch, so I know how to deal with an enemy like that. Look, didn't you tell me once that you guys are keeping a register containing information about every living animal on this planet? If that witch was part of this lemur pack once, then maybe you've collected some useful things about her, too."

Classified nodded. " _Just a second; I'll check._ " – For a moment the camera moved, shaking hard, and there was a clattering sound when he set the laptop aside to put up another one next to it on the desk in front of him. " _So what intel do you have on that… person?_ "

"They call her by the name of Seven… 'Seven the Golden Lemur'," Skipper remembered.

" _Sorry, but there's no citizen of Madagascar registered with that name._ "

"Huh. Oh, you know what, 'Seven' is probably not her real name… she might've been registered under a different name."

" _Possibly. Do you know that name?_ " – Skipper shook his head. – " _That's too bad. We don't have any nicknames or codenames stored in the database. With the information you've given me 'Seven' could be any female lemur on that island,_ _according to the search engine._ "

Skipper watched as Eva flew over and landed on Classified's shoulder, craning her neck to whisper something into his ear. He nodded thoughtfully. " _Yes… let's do it like this._ "

– He tapped his keyboard again while he explained to Skipper, " _I may not be able to run a specific search for a lemur called 'Seven', but what I can do is show you a statistical table of all the animals who studied magic in Madagascar in the past ten years. If the one you're looking for calls herself a 'witch', then she was very likely among those animals. It seems that there aren't too many of them, so you may be able to identify her._ " A moment later the videophone beeped and an envelope symbol appeared in the top right corner of the display.

Skipper opened the file; it contained a virtual list giving data on every student of magic in Madagascar indexed over the past decade and their respective degrees. The names were arranged alphabetically and each name had a photo of the according animal next to it.

Skipper frowned when he noticed that there was a _Karl the Fanaloka_ listed as well, _intended degree: witch doctor. Studies not completed._ He made a mental note to keep that in mind.

He skimmed further down the list, noticing an entry almost near the bottom.

"That's her." The image of the young black lemur girl with lilac blooms tucked behind her ear struck him immediately when he came to it. "A lemur girl by the name of Yasu. I can't be hundred per cent sure of course; it was dark in that canyon, and I saw her on my targeting screen only, but the resemblance is uncanny. Could you fax me a copy of that picture?"

" _Sure_." A little later the fax machine on the other end of the console chirped; slowly, steadily, the machine spat out a gray-scale copy of the wanted image.

Skipper tore the paper out and scrutinized it.

" _Let's see…_ " Classified ran the specific search in the person index again, tagged with the term 'Yasu'. " _Successful graduation at lemur school, then enlisted as a student of healing magic at Madagascar's only magic school,_ " he read out loud to Skipper, _"Straight-A student all through magic school, never quite popular though, although Yasu was involved in various extracurricular activities on campus, such as music, dance, and the local chess club. Disappeared under mysterious circumstances a couple of years ago and has been listed as 'missing' since then._ "

"Yes, that fits! Julien said she disappeared and was brought back by Clemson…"

 _"Rumors have it that her former teacher from magic school has something to do with her disappearance, but there's no confirmation yet on that point."_

"Her teacher?" His chin resting in his flipper, Skipper pensively gazed out the cockpit window. "And who's that?"

" _Give me a minute._ " Classified ran a new search for information about Madagascar's magic school. Skipper looked away from the screen in deep thought for a moment, processing what he'd heard from Julien and the others earlier, recalling their words that were still on his mind, but they hadn't said anything about that.

"Any results?"

" _Yes. It says here that Madagascar's magic school has only one teacher, so it's got to be this animal. It's not a lemur, though…_ " Classified turned away from the other screen and looked back at Skipper. " _…It's a chameleon lady. Her name is Masikura._ "


	13. Chapter 12 - Masikura's Lament

CHAPTER 12

 **MASIKURA'S LAMENT**

 _Just as I thought._ Skipper clenched his flippers into fists. _Julien's been had by some false friend once again…!_ He hurried back to the coffee fields where they'd arranged to meet once he was done contacting the North Wind and Julien and Maurice were done distributing the charms around the village. The two lemurs were already waiting for him. Waving the printed image in front of their faces, he didn't hesitate to tell them what he'd just learned from the other agent team.

"There you go – I told you there was something fishy about that lady! Now you have the proof that this so-called fortune teller of your village is really a cunning charlatan who secretly provided that witch with the power to conquer your island!"

Julien clutched the piece of paper in his paws, sharing a worried look with Maurice. The older lemur scratched the back of his head. "So what you're saying is that you think Masikura is secretly working together with Clemson and Seven?" he asked Skipper.

"Correctamundo!"

"But... No, I can't believe this!" Julien shook his head resolutely.

"Me neither." Maurice shrugged. "Although I thought it was rather strange that since Clemson brought the witch here, she wouldn't ever appear again when you called for her..."

"But... but she was the one who helped us call the penguins! If she were working for Clemson, why would she help strengthen the enemy's position?"

"Don't be a fool, Ringtail. Think about it – if she doesn't give away her position too soon, it means she can keep working against us without our noticing," Skipper contradicted, "This could've all been just a clever snare to lure us here and trap us, too – after we brought you back here a couple of months ago, she probably guessed we'd come visit you again sooner or later anyway and then would've disturbed Clemson's dictatorship. So this was the best method she had of asserting control over what we do – by 'helping' you call us here to fight Clemson and Seven, she could not only easily divert suspicion from herself but also keep a better track of our actions!"

He took the picture back from Julien and clutched it in his flipper so tightly they could hear the paper crumbling. – "But now we've got all proof we need to turn things around."

Julien was silent for a moment, considering this. "Let's go visit her, Momo," he said then, "I know she prefers to be called the psychic way because she doesn't like any visitors at all in her private cave, but we've got to talk to her about this face to face."

Skipper and Maurice agreed to this, and the three of them headed off for the mountains right away.

The torches in front of the chameleon lady's cave were lit, indicating she was home. A beaded curtain hung in front of the cave's entrance, not meant to be crossed by anyone but herself. But they couldn't care about it now. Julien wanted to go ahead, but Maurice put a paw on his shoulder, holding him back.

"Be careful. If she's really working with Clemson and Seven, we don't know how she'll react if we confront her about it now. Let Skipper handle this."

The penguin leader peeked through the curtain and into the small cave behind; draped on all four walls were colorful wool carpets that hung to the floor on long chains. In the middle of the cave was a cloth-covered table with a deck of cards laid out on the surface and cushioned stool on the far side on which the owner sat meditating, legs crossed and hands folded. Her eyes were closed. Yet Skipper had a feeling she probably knew by now that they were here. With a firm grasp, he ripped the bead curtain down before he leapt inside the cave and landed right in front of her table, dropping into a battle stance.

"You must be Masikura." – With warrior-trained eyes he scanned the room for traps but there didn't seem to be any. "We've come to talk to you, lady – I think you owe us an explanation. And you better be honest about it!"

Barely moving, the fortune teller eased out of her meditative position and slowly opened her eyes. They were dull from lack of sleep, and lines creased her forehead.

"So you're finally here," she murmured, "I know you would come."

The two lemurs had now dared enter her cave as well; now that they could be pretty sure that there was no imminent danger, Julien didn't hesitate to step forward and show her the picture. "Masikura, do you know this lemur? Do you know about a lemur girl called Yasu?"

"I do." The chameleon lady arched her thin brows. "How did you find out about this?"

Skipper crossed his flippers in front of his chest. "That's classified information."

"Whoever told you about it was well-informed." Heaving a deep sigh she slid down from her chair and walked over to the small fire burning in the back of the cave, beckoning them to join her. "Very well, I shall tell you the whole story."

The leader arched an eyebrow. "Please do."

"Before I became a fortune teller, I used to work with the witch doctors," Masikura told them when they had gathered around the fire, "Do you know about the witch doctors?"

Being inhabitants of Madagascar, Julien and Maurice did, but Skipper shook his head slightly, indicating no.

"They're a group of animals who have dedicated themselves to studying magic with the goal to heal those who are said to be incurable without the help of witchcraft," Masikura explained him, "I worked with them as a teacher of healing magic, educating new students who were interested in learning about this special branch of medical training. I had many students, but back then I had two of them who were more formidable than all the others. One of them was Yasu. I'd known her since she was five years old; she wasn't born on Madagascar but in captivity in a zoo somewhere in East Asia. From there she managed to escape and fled over the oceans and eventually came here on a small raft, starved and delirious, and of course there was no one around Madagascar who knew her or spoke her language. I was the one who found her, so I cared for her and later took her up as my student."

Julien's fingers came to clench on her shoulders as he frowneddarkly down on her. "So it's just as we suspected – you gave her the powers that turned her into a killer eventually!"

Masikura grabbed his wrists and pushed his paws away, a shimmer of hurt in her eyes.

"The knowledge about these powers were given to us by the Sky Gods with the purpose to help other animals! It is not about the powers. This catastrophe… is on _me_."

At that she caught questioning looks from all three of them.

"I am a bad teacher," she whispered, and now the pain in her voice was obvious, "Two such formidable students I had, and they both turned against me! Yasu was exceptional, but only when it came to using magic, not as a person. She was arrogant towards her fellow students and often fell out with them; there was always a lot of conflict and jealousy among the young people. She was also the first lemur who managed to perform the transfiguration spell that could cause both animate and inanimate objects to disappear and reappear…"

Julien and Maurice exchanged a brief glance. "You mean that, uh… 'teleporting' sort of thing she did before… the thing with the golden butterflies?"

"Precisely. It is quite an advanced spell; no lemur has succeeded in performing it before her, so after that she earned herself the nickname 'Golden Lemur' from her classmates. But that wasn't enough for her – she aspired to get better and more powerful than all of them, better still…" Masikura narrowed her bright green eyes to slivers. Her pitiful face remained immobile but for a single tear that trickled down her cheek, leaving a thin, shiny trail.

"Great power always comes with great responsibility – now it is obvious to me that I have gravely and completely failed to teach her about these responsibilities. And thus I sealed her fate… and ours!" More tears were running down her scaly cheeks now, and she turned her face away. The three of them looked at each other—in surprise as well as regret.

Skipper waited for the two lemurs to answer their friend in any way, but they seemed too stunned to say a word, so he saw to this himself. He hesitated a moment but then put a comforting flipper to the chameleon lady's neck frill.

"I'm convinced you told her everything you knew. But whether or not she would accept this responsibility is up to her alone. I'm sure you did the best you could. But what happened? How did she become what she is now... how did Yasu turn into Seven?"

"It was that one night when Yasu was ready to try out the greatest spell of all," Masikura went on, eyes still glazing over with tears, "The spell that bestows control over life and death… the Shadow Spell. I haven't had one witch student who hasn't been tempted to try it out; yet no one's skills came even close to being enough for its performance… except those of my two best students – Yasu the Golden Lemur… and Karl the Fanaloka."

Julien stared at her as if he couldn't believe it. "Karl was your student, too?!"

"Yes. The two of them were the best students I've ever had… everything fell onto them just the right way. They often worked together because of this, too. Karl was close to Yasu; everyone knew that… By then it was the talk of all folk that of all young animals who were growing up at that time the two of them would be the most even match. But it wasn't meant to happen… he broke her heart. It was just after they'd separated that she told me she wanted to try out the Shadow Spell – by making it succeed she wanted to prove Karl that she was the greater magician of the two of them; that if she wanted, she could become the greatest witch of all times; and that he would forever be sorry for having turned her down."

– Another frown marred her brow at the memory. "I tried to change her mind, but to no avail. She'd already collected all the seven Moon Pearls, and there was no way to stop her… so I decided to join her when she set out for the old castle that night. I kept trying to talk reason into her, reminding her that Madagascar's very first ruler, King Julien I, disappeared after he'd tried just the same thing, but she wouldn't listen. She was too angry at Karl… too full of herself. I will never forget how we walked together through the forest in that late autumn night…"

Masikura was sitting calmly now, her cheeks wet with tears, a look of abject misery on her face that made her three visitors fall silent. Finally Skipper cleared his throat.

"So she… she didn't make it then…?"

The fortune teller slowly, gravely shook her head. "No. She was inside the castle preparing the spell with the Moon Pearls, and I was waiting outside not to be affected by their power… and then all I heard was a terrible, terrible scream which I will never be able to forget."

Her voice quavered, and she bit her lip hard. Taking a strengthening breath, she looked at the three of them, searching their shadowed faces for their eyes before she continued, "When I ran inside it was already too late – her body was gone, torn into shreds by the magic which had run through her and which she hadn't been able to control anymore. In all the years I'd never seen a spell gone so terribly wrong, and I pray to Frank that I'll never have to see anything like this ever again. All that was left of the lemur girl I'd known was a bloody mess and a disembodied soul… a ghost, crying and crying for my help."

Fresh tears welled up in Masikura's eyes, and she futilely tried to bite them back.

"Of course from that very moment she realized what a mistake she'd made, and just as obsessed as she'd been with the Shadow Spell before she would then become with finding a way back into life. I told her that there was none, told her I'd warned her explicitly and repeatedly, and that she'd have to stay a ghost forever now, but she wanted to undo her mistake and regain her life by any means. So she started haunting animals, scaring them so much it would drive them to the brink of insanity, until she'd make them willing to give up their lives and surrender their body to her. I told her to stop, told her that she couldn't hold others responsible for her own shortcomings and unhappy predicament, but again she wouldn't listen. After that had gone on for a while I found I had no choice – no choice but to banish her from this world forever. So I prepared a spell that sealed her inside the castle… But of course with that spell I sealed away not only the evil witch but also Yasu, the young lemur lost in the waves who has once been such a lovely girl…"

Tears flowing unbidden, she stared into the fire, curling her toes at her sides.

Julien wrapped his tail around her comfortingly. "It's not your fault, Masikura. You did the best you could; there was no other way to deal with this."

For a long while the chameleon lady didn't reply anything, just stared into vacancy, despair burning in her eyes. Then she nodded.

"There is nothing I'm ever going to regret more in this life… but for the sake of all the souls on this island it had to be done. They needed to be safe from her, and they wouldn't be, as long as she hadn't learned to cope with her own powers. I told her that, too, but of course she was mad at me, so mad; it cuts my heart to think of it! After I'd cast the spell to banish her she cursed me a thousand times, vowing vengeance against me and against all of Madagascar… She told me she wasn't dead; _Yasu_ was dead, but she was no longer her. The seven Moon Pearls hadn't really taken her life but bestowed her with a new life instead, she said – a life in which, thanks to those pearls, she'd call herself _Seven_ and in which she'd yet prove to me and to everyone else that despite the fact that she'd failed to cast the Shadow Spell, she still had become mightier than any animal."

"Now that's a great combination," Skipper moaned, rubbing his temples with the tips of his flippers; slowly he was starting to understand all of this. "– Just imagine how Clemson meets somebody like this – now it's clear why the two of them decided to work together! It's no doubt their delusion of grandeur and their mutual, misguided lust for power and revenge that unites them. We all know how obsessive Clemson is about ruling this island – and if conquering Madagascar for him means for Seven that she, too, can get her revenge on the animals living here, why not join forces?"

"But how could Clemson know about her?" Julien asked, "He's never been on this island before in his life!"

"I once had a grimoire where the spell to release Seven's ban was written down in," Masikura told them, "But after I'd banished her I sent it away from the island to make absolutely sure that no animal would ever free her."

"Yet Clemson must've found it eventually," Julien pointed out, and the others nodded. Angrily he added, "– Well, why, of all animals in this world, did it have to be _him?!_ "

"So Karl was the other student who turned against you?" Maurice asked Masikura.

"Yes. Education in magic has often served as a powerful motivator… not only for good deeds, unfortunately, but also for criminal activities. Karl told me that he wanted to be acknowledged as the greatest mind in all of Madagascar and felt I wouldn't take him serious enough in that… actually, no one would. He wanted to go his own way, use his powers for his own goals… this eventually led to him trying to conquer Madagascar. However, after he heard what happened to Y-… to Seven, he decided to stop using magic for his future plans."

"But now, after that duel, the two of them just vanished together," Skipper recalled, "Do you have any idea why, or where they could be?" – But Masikura shook her head.

"Maybe he can talk some sense into her," Maurice muttered. She sighed.

"I'd be surprised if he managed."

"Listen, Masikura… I'm sorry we suspected you earlier," Julien then said, and the other two nodded their heads, indicating that they were sharing his regret. "But really, you could have told us that before, you know."

The fortune teller lowered her head, avoiding their gazes once more.

"I'm sorry… I was just so afraid you would blame me for the whole issue and expel me from the pack – or make me kill Seven!"

Julien raised his eyebrows. "Well, _can_ she be killed?"

"Yes – now that she obviously has a body again."

"Alright, she may not have to be killed, but she will have to be stopped," Skipper said, "Now if we can't reason with her the way you tried, maybe we can go about this differently. For example, if we somehow managed to turn her against Clemson, we would've already gained a lot – if we can get two of our enemies fighting each other, they won't care about us anymore!"

"I can think of only one who could possibly arrange that." Maurice was muttering the words more to himself than to the others, yet found their questioning gazes on him immediately. "…Mort." – Julien frowned, but before he could say anything Maurice added, "Haven't you noticed anything strange about him lately, Your Majesty?"

"Yeah, he hasn't been touching my feet for a while now..."

"He's been _seeing_ her, Your Majesty! They're trying to hide themselves from the other lemurs, but spies of the Ringtail Guard reported that Mort has been with the witch several times now, and apparently she hasn't done any harm to him at all. And while he can be quite a weirdo sometimes, I think we all know him well enough to be sure he's not joining sides with her to work for someone as _evil_ as Clemson… If you ask me he seems to have some kind of, I don't know, special connection to her perhaps? – Now I was thinking that if we ask him carefully about it and don't press him on it, maybe we can get him to, I don't know… arrange a peaceful meeting or something. – Or just find us any way we can at least try to talk to Seven without her killing us instantly!"

They pondered this for a while and then agreed. Skipper got to his feet.

"Let's go find Sad Eyes and ask him about this."

* * *

Clemson was dreaming of blood and fire and pain. So much pain... so intense that it became an environment in itself – sometimes he was the one in pain, and the blood was his, thick and red against pallid flesh, and then the dream would twist and warp, and he would hear Mea scream again, and he was standing in that room again and looking inside the ghastly apparatus – but it wasn't shiny and cleaned, its inner walls and the velvet were coated in gore, and the mangled, mutilated shape of what had once been a lemur was familiar, so terribly familiar. And then the ache of loss would become so much more horrible than the lacerating sense of fire and pain.

He woke with a cry of terror, gasping for air and trembling all over with the recollection of the dream, the image of Mea's dead body still burning in his mind. He sat up and wiped his eyes with the back of his palm.

 _Just a dream_ , he told himself, but it didn't help – it didn't take away the awful empty ache inside him. It didn't even touch it. His ears still throbbed with screams, and as he stared across the room he realized with a jolt a huge cloud of smoke billowing outside the window. He pushed the covers aside and ran out into the corridor, where the scent of smoke hung richly in the air. He hurried straight down the stairs – the image that greeted him upon entering the throne room couldn't have scared him more.

Parts of the ceiling had come down nearly shattering his throne, and streams of dust were tumbling from cracks in the plaster behind. Chill night air and rain were streaming in through broken glass windows on the outerwalls. Screams and cries rang out from a panicking crowd of Harpies that were gathered in the room and the corridors around it; all was chaos, all was confusion. Their cry went up: 'Fire! Fire!' as a conflagration which terribly reminded him of the Alchimus Hospital was starting to break out all over the castle. Since they were demons they weren't in danger of being hurt or killed; yet whatever – or _whoever_ – it was that had caused all this had managed to give them quite a fright.

"By the Gods, Faraday! What is happening here?!" Clemson had spotted the old servant among them and now pushed through the crowd toward him.

"It appears that we are under attack, Milord." Faraday was trying to calm down the panicking demons.

"What?! By whom?" - A fleeing Harpy bumped into Clemson, nearly knocking him over. – "And where's Seven?"

"I'm afraid I can answer neither of these questions." – Faraday kept trying in vain to coordinate their movements of escape. – "But it is not midnight yet; Milady couldn't do much anyway."

– Just then a shriek ripped through the air outside, and seconds later a mighty convulsion shook the castle with a violence that was prolonged over several seconds. For a moment everyone fell dead silent.

"The west aisle is gone," a Harpy then yelled from somewhere, "And the tower right along with it!" – And the rest of them began clamoring again all the louder.

"Why don't _you_ do anything?!" Clemson hissed at the head servant.

Faraday adjusted his monocle with a slight frown upon his brow and scanned the young king from head to foot. "What could I do, Milord? I am a mere ghost; I have absolutely no power in this world."

The full weight behind his words began to register with Clemson. He started nodding as he picked up the fact that the only one who was vulnerable here, who could in fact be killed was _him_ – and whoever the attackers were, this was most likely just what they were trying to achieve.

" _Frank's blood_ ," he cursed to himself as this realization clearly dawned upon him – just then another impact shook the castle, causing the very air to quake. Clemson's vision was a jolting blur, his eyes unable to focus as he was bounced around on the marble floor. He stumbled back to his feet and didn't lose another second to flee.

His face was dark with terror and anger and his eyes blazed with an unearthly light as he stormed through the corridors, slamming doors and shoving Harpies out of his way as he went. Finally he pushed the main doors open, rushing outside, and there he saw them – four jet planes, like birds of prey in a mechanized flock, slashing through the night sky above him, dropping down fire bombs on his castle.

The planes dove low and rose again immediately after releasing their bombs – there were flashes of glistening white and orange lights on top of the castle roof, followed by loud booms. With each strike, another piece of stone and mortar chipped, cracked, or shattered and tumbled down into the moat. The Harpies did what they could to reinforce the structure of the castle from inside, but it wasn't much they could do, and if it went on like this, the whole building would be bombed to pieces before long.

But Clemson didn't care about staying and fighting with them now – in a few hours, when midnight struck, he would have Seven repair the damage with magic anyway.

All he cared about right now was saving his own life.

He scurried out of the castle and over the drawbridge and then headed right for the sheltering leaves of the forest. Yet the thunderous roars of the jets wouldn't fade behind him, and it wasn't long until he sensed something – someone – following him. Watching him.

When he gazed up at the black sky, he spotted the silhouettes of the four planes against the moon – they'd moved away from the castle and were now aiming at him instead, hunting him down to finish what they'd started. The sound of their engines growing louder chilled him to his bones. Then there was a shrill shriek, the same sound he'd heard before – the sound of a firebomb being thrown off… It came crashing down far in front of him, enough for him to realize that the forest around him would soon be in flames.

Whoever they were, it was clear to him that they had him targeted.

He turned around and ran the other way, right into the denser part of the forest. More and more shrieks could be heard – up ahead he saw those abominable orbs of fire screaming through the air to deliver their destructive payload. The four pilots were desolating the entire forest as they were hunting Clemson down, leaving him with fewer and fewer places to hide. Panic coiled around his lungs, tightening until he could barely breathe. The jet fighters had brought down almost all the trees around him now, and no matter where he ran, the pilots could see him. The first plane was already coming right at him – the pilot looked down at him through the Plexiglas canopy, so close that he could see her red fur, her green eyes shining insanely with the joy of battle and of killing.

 _Clover…!_

Now his fear grew tenfold. This woman was a killer – she wouldn't rest until she'd have him thoroughly and utterly erased from the face of the earth. And the other three –?

Their planes, too, banked to come in low above him, approaching fast, moonlight glinting on their wings. Through their front windows Clemson could see the black and white plumage of their familiar figures – Kowalski speaking into his microphone giving orders to the other pilots, Rico's face twisting into a violent, laughing grimace, and Private struggling with the controls of his plane.

Why were the penguins here?

Hadn't Seven said she'd cut the island off from the rest of the world, so no one could interfere with his reign? And where was she – why wasn't she here to protect him?

He didn't have time to think it through. Running as fast as his legs would carry him, he approached the foot of the nearest mountain and dove behind a large boulder to catch his breath. The sounds of flames and shrieks grew louder and closer yet… He knew that if only one of their bombs hit him, he'd be killed in an instant. And there was nobody around in these mountains or the forests who could help him now – the only sanctuary he'd had on this island was the castle, and it was destroyed now. Where could he go?

His mind raced with options. He darted out into the open and began to sprint again, but as soon as Clover and the others had him back in their eyesight, they were gaining on him again. He ran faster and faster through the underbrush, thorns digging into his flesh, branches cutting into his paws and face as he raced through them. He ran on; he was in the mountains now, ascending easily at first, but the way began to get steeper and the walls on each side more precipitous.

He stopped suddenly when he found himself right at the edge of a crevice, barely wide enough for one lemur, spanning the black depths between two rocks. He peered into the darkness, trying to gauge the distance between the ground and the piece of rock he was standing on. It didn't seem too deep. So he leapt down – he twisted his ankle on a rock as he landed and smashed face first into the ground. He looked up, fearing that any second a flaming orb would hit him from above and disintegrate him – seconds dragged by as he waited for that terrible weapon to seize him, but nothing happened.

He lay dead still, listening to his own panting. But there was no shrieking ball of fire coming down on him to seal his fate. He cautiously lifted his head to gaze up out of the crevice into the sky – and saw the four planes veering off. By the time he'd climbed back to the surface, they were mere black dots against the moon, and he had to squint to follow them.

They had lost his trail.


	14. Chapter 13 - Imaginary Waltz

CHAPTER 13

 **IMAGINARY WALTZ**

A little later Julien, Maurice, and Skipper had assembled in front of Mort's tree. The sun hadn't risen yet, but they could see a dim light in the little upper level window of his hut, and the soft sounds of an organ playing off somewhere in the room behind it told them that the owner was home and awake. They climbed up the branches, and then Skipper softly rapped on the front door. "Open up, Sad Eyes."

The organ music stopped. They heard the small footsteps of someone approaching from inside, and a moment later, the door clicked open.

"Uhm… hello?" Mort stood in the frame, his nightcap on crooked, looking like he'd spent most of the night sleepless. His weary eyes flickered over the faces of his unexpected visitors and then widened with surprise and joy when he recognized the penguin leader.

"Oooh, hi there, ex-neighbor!" He hugged Skipper joyfully. "It's so nice to see you here! I didn't know you were coming for a visit."

"Well, I'd rather call it a rescue operation than a visit," Julien muttered as they followed Mort inside, "We wouldn't know what to do without them, now that Clemson and that terrible witch have taken control of everything and –."

Maurice made a slight gesture to silence him, but Mort had heard every word.

"You have no idea!" he scolded, hazel eyes narrowing with anger, "You know Seven only the way she is when she's with Clemson, but that's not how she really is. You don't know her like I do. No one does… no one but me! I've always dreamed of meeting her and getting to know her magical powers, and then she really came and visited me and showed me things with her magic that were far more incredible than I could have ever imagined! And in person she is even more exciting and charming and just amazing…" He kept on speaking of the witch for a while as if she were a famous movie star or an opera singer. "I just wished everyone could see Seven the way I see her!" he finally exclaimed, turning his back on them in irritation.

The three of them exchanged glances behind his back.

Julien seemed quite a bit surprised that for the first time they could remember he'd actually managed to say something that made Mort of all lemurs angry at him.

"Oh yeah?" he shot back, "I think we've all seen that witch kill enough animals to have a clear idea of what a ruthless, cold-blooded _murderer_ she is!"

"Gentlemen, please." Skipper stepped between the two lemurs, who kept glaring at each other silently. He hated peace negotiations like this one – he would've preferred to be up high with his men right now, dropping bombs on the mad lemur's castle, turning it into a gigantic smoldering ruin –, but he realized how important it was that in this case they at least tried to talk to the enemy as well.

– "Now of course we're all entitled to an opinion, but I think we can all agree on the fact that it can't go on like this. Since ever Clemson declared himself king, Madagascar's been in a state of emergency – the entire island is in the vicious grip of this tyrant… Every single day there are lives at stake; every soul living here is subject to his whims!"

"Yeah, just like I said," Julien scoffed, but the leader kept his gaze fixed on Mort, who defensively clutched his bushy tail and hid behind it.

"– So whatever your relationship with Clemson's friend is about, I'm sure you agree that something has to be done."

"She's not Clemson's friend!" Mort had curled himself into a little ball on the floor, hugging his knees head down, rocking to and fro. "It's not Seven's fault. Clemson makes her do it. When she was here before, she didn't even want to return to him…" He was clutching his tail even harder now, so hard it must hurt. "…Because he hurt her. Because he's _evil!_ "

The little mouse lemur was crying now; tears were running down his cheeks.

"I warned you," he sobbed, "From the very first time that he came to our zoo, I warned you!" He jumped up and stomped his feet. "And I said it would be dangerous to allow him to come here. – Why, why? Why didn't you let him die, Skipper, when the Hoboken Zoo burned down? Why wouldn't you listen to me?!"

His three guests exchanged another glance.

"The past is behind us now, and pointing flippers or whining simply won't do anything to change the present situation," Skipper said, "That's why we need to focus on the options remaining to us at this point. We have to talk to the witch. We've got to figure out a way to end her alliance with Clemson, and that'll be to everyone's advantage… to her own, too, obviously." – Mort hesitated but then slowly nodded his agreement. – "So can you call her here, Sad Eyes? Can you call Seven?"

"Mmh… yes, but she said I should only do it if I really need her," the little mouse lemur replied in a nervous voice. He was sitting in front of them now, scouring his tiny feet against the floorboards, rubbing his toes against each other.

"Well, I can assure you that all of us really need her cooperation now." Skipper bent down to the little lemur and gently patted his flipper on his head, and Mort smiled and flattened his ears when he did so. "– Look, I don't want to force you to do anything. But you know you can trust me, don't you, Mort?"

"Yes! Back in New York you and the other penguins helped us so many times, and in the end you even helped us get back home." He took a deep breath. "Okay, I'll do it."

– He jumped to his feet and then waved his little paws as if shooing them away. "Make some room… I need to do a dance, a very special witch's dance that will call her here."

They obeyed the gesture; Skipper glanced across at Maurice, who was leaning over to him, whispering, "I hope you don't mind, but Julien and I better scram now. If Mort really manages to summon the witch, I think it's best if you talk to her alone; she knows that we're Clemson's enemies, but she doesn't know you. If she sees us here, the chances are pretty high that we'll be irrevocably turned into stone before we even say a word – I believe if anyone manages to reason with her at all, it'll be you."

Skipper nodded. "You may have a point there. We just have to be realistic about how successful we're likely to be when trying to reason with a killer, to boot one with a couple of magic tricks up her sleeve. I agree you two better go hide yourselves."

As soon as the two of them were gone, Skipper moved some more chairs out of the way and then gave Mort a brief, affirming nod. The little mouse lemur tiptoed to the center of the room – and suddenly started a loud, feverish chant. Stretching his arms towards the ceiling, he twirled his body wildly. After a minute of the crazed dance he was sweating profusely, and strands of his light brown fur now dangled loosely in his face.

Skipper couldn't help but grin a little as he watched him dance and wail nonsensical words like a lunatic, still not taking the whole thing about magic too seriously, when all of a sudden organ music began filling the room, floating up to the carved wooden rafters. The music rose and fell, chords crashed and thundered, notes soared to trembling trebles and descended to rumbling bass. He looked over to Mort's small yellow home organ, but no one was there – no lemur sat on the stool creating the music; no fingers struck the ivory keys. With not a soul near the keyboard, the organ played itself.

 _Ghostly_ , Skipper couldn't help but thinking – he was about to observe it more closely when all around him faint wavering flames appeared upon the walls and floor, until the whole room was flickering with pale dots of golden light – when Skipper looked at them more closely he realized they were shaped like butterflies, their light bathing the wooden floor in a warm glow. When he turned back to Mort, the little mouse lemur was encircled by what could only be described as a glowing, oscillating flow of white bands of energy.

He didn't have a clue anymore what was going on, what in the world was happening right in front of his eyes. He wished the North Wind guys could see this –

All of the golden butterflies gathered closely in one spot in front of Mort now, melting into one form – it was roughly lemur-shaped and very beautiful, but at the same time there was something eerie about it, a sensation that sent shivers up Skipper's spine as he was just looking at it. There was a _lemur_ melting out of this light, appearing out of nowhere, looking down on Mort with undisguised glee. The music changed slightly, and then the two of them took each other's paws and melted into a waltz; they began to twirl, and their bodies found an immediate synchronicity. Both seemed to find the whole spectacle nothing but amusing, fondly so.

" _It can't be_ ," Skipper whispered in disbelief, watching all this as if it were a movie or happening to somebody else. He spoke quietly to himself – yet the witch seemed to hear him distinctly across the music.

"What is that stranger doing here?!" The witch let go of Mort's paws and approached Skipper; the music around them stopped at once, and the golden lights faded.

– "How dare you interfere in our beautiful dance like this?! I'll crush you, kill you, and turn you to dust!"

"Hold up a minute!" The leader put up both flippers placatingly; there was a tingle of fright at the base of his neck at the sight of Seven's glowing paws in which she was obviously gathering two balls of destructive energy to shoot at him. "Mort called you here so we can talk things over. _Peacefully_."

The witch turned around to the smaller lemur. "I'm disappointed in you, Mort! I told you this waltz was for you and me alone – and you promised me not to call me when someone else was around!" – Immediately feeling spurned, Mort bit his lower lip that began to quiver.

"Please don't be angry! He said it's very important…"

Skipper nodded. "It is – I assure you, Miss. The future of Madagascar and the lives of all its citizens are at stake."

Seven was standing before him now, eyeing him suspiciously, a young lemur girl with flowing black fur and the face of a child, but behind the mask was age and knowledge a child should not know. The fire in her eyes contrasted with the ashy paleness of her face, almost giving the idea of some sort of demoniac possession inflating and agitating a dead body. "Who are you anyway?" she asked him, "No – _what_ are you? I've never seen an animal like you here before."

"They call me Skipper, Miss, and as you can see I'm a penguin."

"A _penguin?_ Never heard that before. Are you a bird or a fish?"

"Something in between, I'd say."

The witch looked up at Skipper with what he could only describe as a nauseating simper.

"Well, whoever you are, you can't be from Madagascar; there aren't any animals like you around here. So how could you know what's going on here? I cast a spell over this island that blocks off the outside world!"

"Your… ex-teacher Masikura performed a spell to call me and my men here," Skipper explained, "– Apparently one that was stronger than yours."

Seven flinched at the name. "Curse her!" She'd dropped her fake smile, her expression replaced by a more fitting scowl.

"Well, maybe you'd better listen to her – instead of someone like Clemson." Skipper hesitated for a moment but then took her by the shoulders, forcing her to meet his eyes. "Listen, if you keep working for him the way you do, he'll make you destroy the entire lemur population – maybe even the entire population of Madagascar!"

She shrugged. "I don't care about those squalid little power games of the mortal ones."

"But you do care about having to work for Clemson, don't you."

Seven stared at him with earnest, shining eyes as she replied, "The only thing I truly care about is being a witch… and the only way for me to sever my bond with him would be to give up my magic. And I would never do that!"

Skipper raised an eyebrow. "Would that really be so bad?"

"Only an animal who has never felt the stream of pure, pristine magic course through their veins, or known the taste of the first spell spoken through their own lips can talk like this. My magical powers mean _everything_ to me, fool!" she snarled, "Someone like you could never understand! Magic is something wonderful…"

Skipper shook his head, a mirthless smirk playing at the corners of his beak. "Yet it can cause so much evil and hurt."

"And _he_ is hurting you, too!" Mort interfered, "Do you really want to be trapped with Clemson forever? He put his paws on you already once! What will keep him from doing it again?!" Biting his lower lip, he looked up at Seven with big, sad eyes and hunched shoulders. "Now that you have a body again, you could just live like a normal lemur again among the rest of us… We could be together, you know. We wouldn't have to hide from the others anymore… You could just be a part of the lemur pack again, like you used to be!"

The witch's eyes flickered between them for a moment; then she suddenly hung her head, her mouth drawn into a tight line across her face. "No, I couldn't. Because the others would never want me back. They used to hate me back then… And after all I've done to them now, they'd hate me even more!"

Mort shook his head fiercely. "No, that's not true! If they hear your full story, I'm sure King Julien and the others would forgive you and reaccept you in the pack."

"Also, you don't know Clemson," Skipper added warningly, "Whatever you argue about with him, he'll make sure he'll always get his way eventually. He won't leave you alone, won't back off until you put an end to it."

Seven froze, her paw flying to her neck. "Well, I won't be doing anything that will get me in trouble again," she murmured after a brief moment of silence.

"Did you do it last time?"

"No, but…" – Before further protest could pass her lips, Skipper forestalled her.

"Then what do you think will keep him from hurting you again? He's just going to do whatever he wants… with you!"

Seven frowned, her expression softening a bit. "Now you sound just like Karl."

"I'm just asking you to give the idea a chance. Are you sure it isn't even worth considering it?" The penguin leader turned to her, deadly serious now. "It's _Clemson_ who wants you to be a witch forever – but what about you? Deep down you want to feel like a real animal again, don't you. Despite all your witchcraft and magic you don't prefer the dull deadness you've become used to any longer. Because there's one thing you couldn't buy with all your powers: friendship… affection." – He paused and looked between her and Mort for a moment and then positioned himself between them in a way the little mouse lemur couldn't hear them. – "What about Mort?" he added, murmuring, "One word from Clemson, and you'll have to kill him, too, just like you'd do it to any other animal on this island – and he won't give a damn if this lemur lives or dies, or about what he means to you!"

Seven was silent for a while; obviously stricken by this thought, she swallowed hard. "I –."

Just then a loud burst of engine noise ripped through the night, so loud the very air vibrated around them and they had to cover their ears. Mort curled his tail around his head as he wrapped himself into a terrified ball.

"What's going on…?" – Skipper could see Seven's lips moving but couldn't hear her voice; before he could stop her, the young witch hurried outside.

They arrived just in time to watch as four planes dashed right over the rooftop of Mort's hut at high speeds and low altitudes. Clover was flying with her Plexiglas canopy wide open, her victorious howl filling the air. The wind caught up her voice and carried it wide over the island as she yelled, "Rejoice, people of Madagascar! The times of tyranny and oppression will soon be over – this time we got Clemson's castle; next time we'll get his _life!_ "

And Rico and Kowalski fired a few rockets as if to confirm her words. A pack of Harpies was coming after their planes, bouncing and staggering through the air, leathery wings stained with blood and twitching feebly. They were calling the witch's name over and over.

"Seven, Seven, where are you?! Golden Lemur, the king demands to see you at once!"

The witch stared up at them. "What…?!"

"The enemy has led a most vicious attack against us – our castle has fallen, and our king was forced to flee! Where were you when he needed your protection?!"

Skipper buried his eyes in the palm of his flipper. _Oh, no…!_

"Seven, listen," he tried to explain, but the witch wasn't going to hear him.

"You _liar!_ " she yelled at him, flashing into sudden fury, yellow eyes ablaze with anger. "Malicious animal of a malicious species – now I see what this is all about! You're just trying to affect me with your words in order to give your men more time to do damage to us!"

Skipper stiffened himself, flippers clenched into fists. "No, this isn't true. Listen –!"

"You, the most despicable liar that ever set foot upon this island – I shouldn't have believed you, shouldn't have listened to a single word you said! You weren't worried about me in the least – inside you were laughing at how easy it is to fool me, how all it takes for me to believe you are a few well-chosen words of glozing courtesy and faked concern!" She forced the last words out of suffocated lungs. "Just wait and see, you hypocrite! I'll go back to King Clemson and rebuild the castle – and then we're going to make you pay for this!"

"No! Don't go, Seven," Mort pleaded, "Please don't go back to him! He'll hurt you again!"

– But the witch just shook her head bitterly at him and gave Skipper a last dark, accusatory glare before she disappeared in a shower of golden light.

* * *

Clemson awakened feeling the cold rain beating down on his face. When his eyes opened, he tried to remember where he was and then how he had gotten there. He felt wet dirt on the backs of his paws and realized that he was lying on the ground, splashed mud staining his fur. He must have passed out momentarily; it was still dark around him. He looked up into the dark sky – it ripped open with lightning, and rain had begun to fall in a cold silver curtain. His face was bleeding badly, and blood soaked his pelt in many places. His left cheek felt swollen and aching, his throat constricted and dry. He pulled himself up on his elbows after wiping his face with his palms. Then he looked around, needing a moment to settle himself.

When he remembered what had happened, he could feel panic and anger rush through his body all over again – he screamed at the top of his lungs, screamed repeatedly until his voice and strength failed him. Exhausted, he sank back down and closed his eyes for a while, letting the rain wash over him, trying to reign in his emotions, forcing down the panic that threatened to overwhelm him.

Suddenly he had a feeling he'd gotten himself into something he could no longer control.

If Mea were here, he'd just take him for a ride on the motorcycle, and they'd be out of here in no time.

But now he couldn't leave anymore. He had nowhere to run, no place to go. He was king now; he couldn't just desert and take off, run as he'd always done when suspicion came too close to him, when the enemy became too strong or the situation too unpredictable.

Only now he slowly started to realize what this really meant, what a mistake he'd made, a mistake he couldn't rectify or slide away from.

It had been a mistake, everything – from the moment he'd decided to come to this island, he'd chosen to head toward his doom. He'd justified it all in his own mind, just as he'd justified so many things. Losing Mea. Making himself the ally of a witch who gave him world-encompassing promises and then let everything continue as it was as she couldn't actually muster the power to change things to his liking.

 _But now I am king – I am finally king, like I always dreamed to be,_ he told himself, but then guilt rose in him again like a sickness, and a nasty voice kept whispering inside his head, _was all that really worth it?_

And suddenly he felt so powerless he had no idea how he even managed to remain conscious. He was getting confused; he felt as if he'd been drugged. The heartbeats within his chest felt so faint he could barely detect them, and his pulse was so thin it couldn't be felt in the wrist any longer. He could hardly hold himself up. His muscles seemed to be going numb; they were too slow to respond and felt as if they weighed a ton. His vision was dimming. He held his feet into a puddle, letting the cool water lap against his toes, but it wouldn't help much.

 _I am the King of Madagascar, supreme in all ways, supposed to rule with a dazzling dignity_ , he thought bitterly to himself – yet here he was, waking up in a pool of blood and rain on the cold ground, alone in the darkness.

He walked on in a trance; he just wanted to lie down and sleep. He felt dizzy and decided to sit down but fainted before he could do so.

When his eyes fluttered open again, he found himself once more on his back, his head supported by a fluffy pillow. To his surprise he was back in his royal sleeping chamber inside the castle – Seven was by his side, looking weary and disheveled, telling him it had taken her all night to rebuild everything, and Faraday and the Harpy servants were downstairs putting the finishing touches on the throne room so tomorrow he should find everything again the way he liked it. Clemson thanked her curtly, turned his back on her and made the effort to sleep.

"On our way back here I also worked out another spell which I could perform for you," Seven told him.

"What do you mean?" he muttered, annoyed that she wouldn't just leave him alone.

"Well, unfortunately we can't seem to get our paws on the last Moon Pearl – but the other six of them are already in our possession, and while the mightiest spell isn't possible, we can use them for another one – one which I think you will like."

Clemson blinked his eyes open again and sat up in his bed, watching as two Harpies were carrying a heavy object into his chamber – it was a huge oval mirror at the center of a decorated plate on a stand. It had a thick ebony rim, rubbed smooth, as smooth as the glass itself, and to Clemson's surprise the six Moon Pearls they had were neatly fitted into the oval frame.

"The power of the six pearls won't be enough to bring him back to you, unfortunately," Seven explained, "But they can at least enable the mirror to establish a connection to the Shadow World."


	15. Chapter 14 - Mirror, Mirror

CHAPTER 14

 **MIRROR, MIRROR**

The planes veered off and proceeded towards the beach, the noise of their engines fading away eventually, while the two remaining animals stood dumbstruck for a while, not knowing what to do.

Having remained hidden from the witch's eyes in the leafy branches of the next tree during the entire conversation, Julien and Maurice now climbed back over to them.

"What now?" Julien asked, looking surprised when he noticed Skipper and Mort standing there in a trancelike state, "Did the witch cooperate?"

Skipper shook his head slowly. "No. No, not at all! Our negotiations failed miserably, and that's all there's to it!"

"Oh." Julien and Maurice exchanged a worried glance.

The leader heaved a deep sigh. "This one's on me… I should've thought this strategy through more thoroughly! Maybe we would've even had a chance, if my men hadn't dropped by just then. Hoover Dam, if only I'd told them to fly another route –!"

"It's not your fault," Mort murmured sadly, "She probably would've returned to Clemson anyway."

"Now what do we do?" Maurice asked into the following silence.

Everyone thought about that for a moment; then Julien's eyes lit up and he replied, "Let's pray to the Sky Gods! Just remember that tomorrow is Franksgiving Day – there's no better chance to express a wish toward a Sky God!"

Maurice smiled. "Your Majesty, that's an excellent idea!"

"Oh, really…!" Skipper unconsciously rolled his eyes ever so slightly, which did not go unnoticed by the two of them.

"What?" Julien spread his paws questioningly. "I'm sure that if we come up with a passionate prayer now and write 'Free us from Clemson' on every stone we put into the basket of the hot-air balloon tomorrow, Frank will fulfill our wish."

Skipper just shrugged. "Well, do what you have to do. I'm going to see my men." – And he left heading for the beach. Julien and Maurice exchanged a glance and then decided to follow him. Mort, however, stayed behind on his own, silent and staring after the others.

Then, as if in a trance, he slowly turned around and began heading toward the destroyed castle.

* * *

Clemson looked at the mirror speechlessly for a moment, passing his paw over the silky surface of the rim, hardly able to believe what he'd just heard. "This mirror… You mean –."

"Yes. You can see your lemur again through this mirror and talk to him – but only when there is a full moon, like tonight," Seven explained, "Its light is needed to enable the spell. When I brought you back here I realized that tonight is the time; so when the moon has reached its zenith, open your window and the let the light fall onto the surface of the mirror; then you should be able to see through it into the Shadow World like through an open door."

Clemson was silent for a moment, letting the full meaning of her words sink in, and suddenly he was wide awake. "Are you… are you sure this will work?"

"Absolutely."

This wasn't as much as he'd hoped, but it was more promising than any spell the witch had offered him so far. He got up from the bed, walked over to her, and hugged her tight.

"Oh, dear Seven, greatest of all witches – forgive my wrath...!"

She seemed very pleased at his sudden gentleness. "It's the least I can do after I disappointed you so and can't even perform the Shadow Spell for you yet!"

"No, never mind. Everything takes a little practice; I'm sure you'll make it eventually!"

The witch smiled. "I'll be downstairs fixing the throne room in the meantime," she said and then left him to the silence of the now empty room.

Clemson walked over to the window and opened it; the night air outside was cool and still, lying over the island like a mantle of mourning. He gazed up at the dark sky; it had stopped raining, and just like Seven had said, a round and bright and perfect full moon was now shining down on Madagascar. As soon as the moon had progressed into a fitting position, he moved the heavy mirror over to the window and inclined it a little forward, placing it at an angle the silver light would fall upon its surface.

For a moment this all seemed too surreal; he doubted this would work. After all, Seven had disappointed him before… Would he really be able to see Mea again –?

 _If I could see your smile just one more time, I wouldn't regret losing this life. I miss you. I long for you… Please, just let me apologize to you once! I love you…_

Just as he thought so, kneeling at the window and bowing his head in silent prayer, the Moon Pearls began to glow. They cast their pale blue light upward – at the same time mist began swirling behind the glass, changing the inside of the mirror, where a moment ago Clemson had still caught his own reflection, into flurries of shade. Gradually, before his hazy vision, an image began materializing from these shades… the image of a lemur.

Clemson leapt to his feet and approached the apparition, hesitating at first, his heart hammering violently, his insides writhing in a chaotic mess. The image sharpened. The other lemur stared at him from inside the mirror. His sight paralyzed Clemson; his image seemed surreal, yet so very familiar.

" _Clemson_." The android put his paws against the glass from inside, and Clemson was in front of the mirror in a flash.

"Mea…! _Mea!_ Come back, come back! Come back to me! Please…" His voice broke on the words although he fought for composure. Mea reached up and placed his palm against the glass from inside. Clemson put his fingers on the mirror from the other side, craving the electricity of his touch. He ran a finger over the surface, wishing to be able to touch the android's fur but all he felt was the cold, hard glass.

Mea smiled back at him sadly. " _I can't_ ," he whispered, " _I'm sorry_." Auburn curls of fur floated and fluttered about his face, as if he were nothing but a wraith in an ethereal world.

" _I'm dead, Clemson. It's true; at first I didn't want to believe it myself, but it is._ _I'm not sure how it's even possible that we can see each other right now… I think of you, dream of you often; maybe that's how it works. But even if you're just a dream – I'm very glad to see you again, so please, just stay for a while, okay?_ " He tried to keep his voice casual, but the catch of grief in it gave him away.

"Oh, Mea…!" Clemson's heart ached at these words and at the sight of the android's dark figure; the once rugged, healthy lemur he'd known seemed reduced to a pale wreck, tired and drawn. His face was beset by a strange expression, but Clemson didn't fail to see the pain behind his eyes and the look of grim despair on his face that even his little smile couldn't hide. "This isn't a dream. Seven gave me a mirror through which I can look into the Shadow World," he explained, "She said that's where you are now…"

" _I guess so. I don't know where I am, really. It… it looks like Madagascar. But it's huge… it looks just like the island, only that it's infinitely huge_." Mea hesitated a moment before he added, " _After the witch put me in that… thing and damaged me beyond repair, I thought at first that I would've passed out and missed something because when I woke up I was… here._ " He waved his paw behind him toward what looked like a part of Madagascar.

– " _In fact I thought I was just back somewhere outside the castle. There was something strange about the island, though, but I couldn't quite pinpoint what it was. There were a lot of animals around – animals you'd never actually meet in Madagascar –, and when I talked to them they said they were dead, and so was I. I didn't believe them at first but when I met a couple of guys from Hoboken, who had gotten killed by Charlie back then, I knew it had to be true. I went back to the castle, hoping to find you there – but the whole place was entirely desolate and deserted, a long abandoned ruin. I asked the others where you were and why there was no one inside the castle, and they told me that we live on the other side now and that we couldn't ever go back_."

Clemson shook his head, the words sinking in slowly, painfully, far too clearly. He had already understood that even if he searched the whole island, he'd never find a trace of the android. "It's true then… You must be in the Shadow World. You must be dead." He swallowed hard. Hard. "I lost you. Forever."

Mea said nothing, but the grief in his silence was as clear as the full moon outside.

"What have I done?" Clemson murmured hoarsely, "How… how could I let this happen? I never should have come to this island. We should've never met the witch. My beloved Mea, I have destroyed your life!" He turned his face away as scalding hot tears began running down his cheeks.

" _Clemson, no_ ," Mea said, much too kindly. When Clemson looked at him again, the android's red eyes were glowing but faintly, like twin lamps of an imprisoned electric soul staring out through his tortured face. " _This is the answer for you; this was the only way to fulfill your dreams_."

"What do you mean…?" Clemson whispered, trying to blink his tears away.

" _Madagascar is yours now. And you will rule it without my chains._ " The android's voice was shaky and faint, as if he was forcing the words past great pain and weakness.

" _It's okay, Clemmy. We have both fulfilled our deepest yearnings. You, becoming the King of Madagascar – and me, helping you do so. Now, you don't need me anymore._ "

"You know that's not true!" Clemson clenched his paws into fists to keep them from shaking. He swallowed thickly, as he could have sworn that in his chest he felt his heart split. "There must be a way to undo this…"

But the android shook his head. " _What happened to me is my own fault. After all, it was me who didn't even want to believe in magic, remember? I made fun of the witch – and that was when I pushed my luck too far. If I hadn't messed with her…_ "

"But it didn't have to be _you!_ " Clemson cried, "She just asked for a victim – I could've gotten her somebody else! _Anybody!_ – How could I let her take _you_ of all lemurs?!"

" _Shh… Don't be silly. None of this is your fault! It's mine; if I had just left well alone, I could've been fine, but no, I practically provoked her to choose me. Anyway, her powers are at your command now, so why shouldn't you just enjoy having your greatest dream fulfilled? You really shouldn't depend on me to do that. I'm just a machine after all; I'm your support, your weapon. You don't have to grieve for me! Go live this dream, Clemson. That's what you made me for: to help you fulfill it_." –His firm tone didn't match the look of chagrin in his eyes when he added, barely audible, " _Not to… be in love with you…_ "

"How can you say that?!" Clemson firmly held his gaze although soul-rending grief was howling through his being now. "I miss you… What happened to you – what I did –, I regretted it from the moment this gruesome ceremony was completed. And since then, every day, every hour has been grinding, scorching me away as I kept regretting how much I gave away so frivolously, how much I lost… _You_ , Mea, the lemur I would've loved for the rest of my fucking days." His face grew very dark when deep inside he mustered up a determination he'd never felt before.

– "Loving someone means becoming your partner's ally for your entire life, and from the moment I decided that I wanted to be with you, I was prepared to have the whole world as my enemy! So I will get you back, come hell or high water! I promise you – I'll be with you again, even if it means I'll have to kill every single one of those animals out there!"

The android was looking back at him with a strained countenance, his lips pressed tight, and something broke behind his eyes.

" _These are lovely words… though I'm not quite sure I deserve them. But you see, it's… it's just not meant to be_ ," he replied softly, his voice fragile now, his own lips trembling. " _Don't you see?_ _We can't be with each other anymore, so the answer for you is to set me free._ "

Clemson shook his head resolutely, a simmering panic rising inside him as he realized how final Mea's words sounded. "No. I'll find a way somehow."

" _There's none. I asked everyone around here. I tried everything to find out how to get back into the Light World… back to life. The other dead animals laughed at me, saying everyone who died with many regrets would do that, but they'd all have to give up eventually. And it's true – because there is simply no way. There just isn't! Death is the one thing in nature we can't avoid, can't change… it is an animal's inevitable fate, as well as that of all living things._ "

"But… but Seven said she could make it…"

" _She won't make it. They say the Sky Gods have forbidden it. They say that's what the Sky Gods meant for the mortals –_."

"Screw the Sky Gods! You've never even believed in them at all!"

Clemson clenched his paws tightly, willing away the pain, wishing he could've embraced the android, held him just one more time, but he couldn't – the mirror glass was an inviolable boundary between the two worlds. Grief was swelling inside him, choking him; tears were streaming down his face, and he slumped beside the mirror, the room around him spinning in a haze of anguish. He was cold, so very cold.

" _Oh, don't – don't grieve like that, Clemson_ ," he heard Mea murmur, " _We can't make it right! Not this time…_ " He was crying now, too, crying almost too hard to speak. " _I'm so sorry. I wish I could do just anything, anything at all!_ "

Clemson clenched his jaw as fresh pain exploded through him. He was left gasping when a sudden feeling of nausea rushed over him and the room lurched in his blurred vision. He didn't want Mea to apologize. He was the one to blame for all this.

 _"– Now look, through this mirror we can still see and talk to each other; that's at least something, isn't it._ " The android was trying to calm him with soothing words, but it didn't work. " _And for the rest you don't need me anymore, Clemson, I'm sure. Remember that back in Hoboken you built me with one sole purpose – to help you become king of the lemurs. This was the one duty of my life, and it is fulfilled now. This is more than most real animals can say about their lives when they're old, so I'm proud. And so you should be._ "

Clemson drew a shivering breath before he looked back at him; Mea's image swam before his eyes, and he grasped at the mirror to anchor himself.

"Yes. I've made it. I am the King of Madagascar…" He gazed across the room to his crown and scepter lying on the dresser. When he looked back, Mea was smiling at him.

" _You are my eternity, my strength. I would've loved you until the day my hard drive failed. And now I'll be the wind as it brushes against your cheeks, the sun as it warms your skin._ " The android wiped his eyes with his paw, but the words kept coming out broken.

" _You get back out there and rule the world, just like you should… and I'll stay right here waiting for you, Clemmy. Waiting until you come see me again._ " His voice hitched on a sob as he added, " _Because you… you won't forget about me, right?_ "

Clemson couldn't answer. It just hurt too much.

Before he could say a word more, a fist-sized stone suddenly emerged from nowhere – it flew towards the mirror from behind and crashed right into it. The stand toppled backwards – collapsing into an ethereal smoke, Mea's image faded away just before the mirror hit the floor with a loud crash, where it burst into a thousand fragments scattering themselves across the marble tiles.

Ghostly shrieking laughter echoed through the darkness behind him, and when he jerked around, he glimpsed a small, fleeting shadow dashing from his room and down the hallway.

"Ha, ha, ha! Now it's payback time, Clemson!"

* * *

"What the hell were you thinking?! Your little… _flyby_ ruined the entire operation!"

Skipper was pacing up and down in front of Clover and his men in his usual stiff, military manner. They were standing at the beach next to their planes, the turned off engines slowly cooling down after the wild flight.

"The bit of trust we had just gained from the witch – the bit of reason we'd talked into her – was gone the moment you guys appeared, and she ended up mistaking my attempt to cease hostilities in a peaceful way for an attempt to deceive her! We had her doubt Clemson already, but now she's back with him, sticking to him just to oppose us!"

The three other penguins were silently staring at their webbed feet, guilt written all over their faces.

"But we just wanted to cheer the other animals up a bit," Private finally tried to explain meekly, "You know… show them that someone is doing something against the tyranny, that they won't have to keep on living in fear forever!"

"Yeah, that's all fine, Private!" the leader snapped back at him, "But couldn't you have done that, I don't know… on the other side of the island?!"

"Well, how were we supposed to know that you were going to see the witch at Mort's house?!" Kowalski interfered, "You didn't even tell us about that beforehand!"

"Calm down, everyone. The damage is done already, so there's no use pointing fingers now. …Flippers, I mean. Whatever." Clover looked down, angry at the situation, at herself for not having considered something that seemed so obvious now. "Let's just wait for tomorrow night and then repeat the attack. We almost had Clemson already – we were so close, damn it! We were hot on his heels, but then we lost him. We were too slow. – Well, he won't escape us a second time, that's for sure!"

"But we can't do it tomorrow night." Everyone's heads turned toward Julien, who was standing next to Maurice a little apart from the group. The lemur king looked tired but pleased and excited as he reminded them, "Tomorrow night is Franksgiving Ball!"

The penguins looked at each other; Skipper rolled his eyes, muttering something like 'not this again' but then decided to keep his beak shut out of deference for cultural differences.

"It's surprising enough that Clemson allows Franksgiving to be celebrated at all," Maurice remarked.

Clover raised her eyebrows. "Does he?"

"Yeah. I just watched as some of the others started to prepare the hot-air balloon this evening, and Clemson's demon friends were around, too, but they wouldn't do anything to stop them."

Clover looked over at Skipper. "Do you think he's planning something?"

The leader gazed out pensively over the ocean behind their backs. "Hard to say."

Rico muttered something to his taller brother, and Kowalski nodded. "Maybe he's hoping for Karl to show up so he can challenge him to fight for that Moon Pearl again," he explained.

"Then he'll be disappointed," Maurice replied, "Karl doesn't celebrate Franksgiving."

Julien shook his head. "Of course not! It's a lemur tradition."

"Then this can't possibly be the reason for Clemson to allow the celebrations," Kowalski reasoned, "Because Seven obviously knows Karl, so she'll know in advance that he won't show up at all, and she'll tell Clemson about it."

"Yeah, but Seven is a lemur, too. Or… has been," Clover replied, "And Franksgiving isn't only every lemur's favorite day of year because everyone gets to express their needs and wishes. Frank is also our highest deity – it would be practically blasphemous not to celebrate it. Every lemur knows that; so maybe she made him allow it."

"No way," Julien contradicted, "Both Clemson and Seven take pleasure only in hurting others, not in having parties with them, and they don't care about the Sky Gods in the slightest!"

Maurice frowned. "Are you really sure about this? At some point even those two must realize their inferiority to someone as mighty as Frank…"

"I see we can't solve this here," Skipper concluded after listening to the conversation going back and forth like this for a few minutes, "It seems we have no choice but to wait and see. However, we should take precautions in any case, of course. Now where does this ridiculous and completely unnecessary hootenanny – …the divine festival, I mean, take place?"

Clover wrinkled her nose at his choice of words. "The balloon containing the wish rocks of the people is released from under the great baobab tree, after the lemur king has delivered the introduction speech. Then everyone has fun in the water park, and in the evening the celebrations end with a great ball."

"Looks like we'll have to skip the waterslide tradition this time, now that the park's been ruined by magic madness!" Julien muttered.

Skipper needed a moment to mentally arrange every piece of information he'd been given and then announced, "Alright, here's how we roll: Rico, Private, you two stand guard by the castle to anticipate the enemy's next move. Kowalski –."

"Sorry, Skipper, I think the first thing I should do is repair Private's plane." The second-in-command pointed his flipper toward the _Maverick IV_ , and his brothers came waddling around to stare at the damage in consternation. The front landing gear had collapsed, causing the plane to tilt over on its nose, and the entire rear wing had been sheared away as though a giant knife had cut effortlessly through it.

Skipper would only shake his head. "Private, what the hell happened?!"

The rookie looked shyly at his webbed feet. "It's not my fault, Skipper! Clemson's flying servants did that… During our attack on the castle they did quite a number on my poor plane."

"Yeah, and we never know when we need it again, so I think I better fix this fast," Kowalski said, "The trouble is, I don't have the necessary equipment with me, though…"

"You could ask Timo about that," Maurice suggested, "He lives in the Cove of Wonders on the other side of the island; that cove is also sort of his workshop. He's pretty good at fixing and inventing all kinds of things."

Skipper nodded. "Alright – Kowalski, you go see that guy and get the plane fixed then. Now Maurice, you and Ringtail –."

"– We're going to the festival, of course!" Julien interrupted him with a beaming smile.

The others stared at him. "Are you out of your mind?!"

"Why, all the other lemurs are going, too, aren't they? There's no way I can miss the greatest party in all of Madagascar!"

Clover shook her head resolutely. "I can't allow that, Your Majesty. It's too dangerous."

"She's right," Skipper muttered, "After all, you're Clemson's enemy number one!"

"Oh, _please!_ " Julien's face slid back into a well-practiced pout as he tipped his head and, from under his lashes, gazed up at them with that little-boy look with just the right amount of soft appeal that no one could resist. "Franksgiving is the big day of the year, the one event you can't afford to miss! Even if everything is overshadowed by Clemson's tyranny – if we're granted to celebrate this day, we should use it! After all the terrible things that have happened lately, my people are dying for a party like this to dance the night away. – And we've got you guys to watch over everything, right? Besides, the entire kingdom will be united for the ball, so if we just mingle with the crowd, we won't be discovered."

" _We?_ " Maurice couldn't hide his uneasiness at the thought. "Uh… King Julien, if it's no bother to you, I'd rather skip the ball and stay with the penguins, so –."

"No way, Maurice. You're coming, too." The lemur king gave him his best smile and a wink. "After all, I need a dance partner!" he added in a half-whisper that was meant only for Maurice.

"Oh." Visibly blushing under his fur, the older lemur cleared his throat and nervously shifted his weight from foot to foot. "Well then, I guess…"

"Come on, let's get our tuxedos!" Julien grabbed him by the wrist and began dragging him off. "Or maybe we should wear something else? Do we dress smart? Or glitzy? You're my advisor, Momo, so I trust you give me your best advice now! Oh, and how should I wear my hair? Up or down?..." Julien's excited voice trailed off as they moved out of earshot.

The other three penguins had already moved out as well to go about their respective tasks, so Skipper and Clover were the only ones left on the beach.

Clover just shook her head, outraged. "Skipper, we can't let that happen!"

The leader sighed. "I agree this… isn't exactly optimal. But I really don't think we could've talked Ringtail out of attending that ball. Do you?"

She rolled her eyes. "No. No, probably not," she then admitted with a shrug, "Well, you know King Julien. Crazy or not, we'll just have to deal with his decisions and try to make the best out of it."

"Right. So for reasons of safety we'll have to maintain permanent supervision over him and Maurice… and generally over the whole event, of course."

Clover nodded her agreement. "So how do we go about this? Should we take camouflaged positons among the trees surrounding the dance floor?"

"That was my first idea, too, but now I think it's wisest if we do it just like Ringtail and Maurice. That way we won't be forced to remain stationary but we'll be able to get a view on things from all angles." Noticing the puzzled look on her face, he added, "Think about it – two animals in a crowd of dancing couples; that's the best disguise there is. So…" He looked at her for a moment with an expression she couldn't quite read and then made a little bow. – "…Clover, may I have the honor of asking you to dance?"

The lemur girl stared at him; it took her a moment to see through his plan and sort out the strategy he planned to pursue. Then a meaningful smile came over her face.

"With pleasure, Skipper."


	16. Chapter 15 - All I Need

CHAPTER 15

 **ALL I NEED**

On his knees, his eyes streaming with tears, Clemson wailed his anger and shame out aloud. He picked through the scattered shards, slicing his fingertips and spilling blood across the marble tiles. Grasping a sliver of glass, he raised it to his eyes again as if to confirm the awful truth. _No… No! Mea…_

It all went cold – nothing left in his soul, as if every ounce of light drained out of him. He looked down at his right wrist. A shard of glass stuck out where numbing pain flared. The skin beneath his fur was cut; blood gushed out. Without thinking what he was doing he pressed the shard deeper inside – blood squirted like a fountain, ran down his arm in thick rivulets until it didn't drench only his fur but also all his senses. It flooded his mind, dripped onto every thought. He couldn't open his eyes. Red replaced the pain inside, smothered his consciousness. He breathed in and out slowly, trying to control his apprehension. He became aware of his breathing, and the sound made him feel vulnerable.

Finally he blinked his eyes open again, blinked down at the shattered mirror. Now there was nothing left… nothing at all. The link to the Shadow World was gone – his only connection to Mea… He put his paws over his eyes and clutched at his temples. He was getting a headache. Paws trembling, he reached for a cigarette from the night stand, vexed when he realized the pack was almost empty.

A silhouette appeared in the door frame, as shadowy and intangible as an apparition… then Seven stepped into the room toward him.

"What's wrong, Your Highness? I heard some noise upstairs –." Just then her gaze fell to the glass splinters on the floor, and she clapped her paw over her mouth to cover a gasp. "Oh, dear Frank…! – How did this happen?!"

"Someone threw a stone into the mirror… I don't know who. It went so fast, I couldn't see who it was." Clemson's voice was nothing but a whisper of agony.

"Maybe the culprit is still around the castle!" – The witch ran off in pursuit, but somehow Clemson knew she was already too late. There had been something about that laugh that had struck a chord in him, something familiar, but he hadn't given the matter a thought – his only concern was the destroyed mirror.

"I, uh… I couldn't find anyone. I'm sorry, Your Majesty." – There was a slight shiver in Seven's voice as she reappeared behind him a little later, but he barely payed any heed to it. – "Whoever did this must have already escaped!"

Clemson raised hazy eyes to meet hers.

"Can you fix it?" he asked, his every word laced with sorrow and hope as he knelt there between the splinters in front of her, waiting for her answer.

He wasn't interested so much in knowing who had broken the mirror.

He just wanted to be sure it could be repaired.

"I could fix the mirror itself," Seven said slowly, "But I can't restore its powers. I wouldn't know how to do it; I'm not sure anyone could. Only the Sky Spirits themselves hold the power to make things undone as though they had never happened… to them the concept of breaking or losing things doesn't even exist. However, no animal will ever possess such power, not even after they've acquired the knowledge of magic."

 _Just as I feared._ Clemson lowered his head, hiding his face from her, hiding the anguish her words caused him. "Listen, Seven. Can't we… can't we just reverse it?" he murmured, straining to keep his voice steady.

"Reverse what happened? But I just told you –."

"No." Tears were filling his eyes now and began to run down the deepening hollows of his cheeks while he kept staring blankly ahead. "Reverse our pact. Reverse what you… what we have done. Please, why can't you just leave me again… reverse everything to how it was before we met, and then leave forever –?"… _And never EVER come back into my life –!_

"Leave you…? I don't think I understand. Even if it were possible to reverse our pact and all its effects – which it isn't, as I've told you several times before –, why would you wish for a thing like this?" She crossed her arms in front of her chest. "It was you who set me free… you wanted me with you. With my magic, you said, you would be so much stronger – with me by your side you would finally have what you've been craving for so long: power beyond your wildest dreams! And look at this island – look at all the animals willing to glorify your name, to worship you like a Sky God! Isn't this what you wanted? Isn't this what you expected me all along to make come true for you?"

"Yes…" Clemson closed his eyes for a moment, fighting the bitter memories that erupted in his mind when he recalled how he'd felt the first time he'd entered this castle, when he realized that actually, truly, she was right. Should have been. "Yes, I thought that if only I could rule this island, I would be satisfied. But when I held that grimoire in my paws, greed rose up inside me… I caved in to the desire to have your powers all to myself, no matter how much it would cost me." He could hardly push the words past the grief gathering in his throat.

"And that's nothing to feel ashamed about," said Seven when she saw the shattered look in his eyes, "Isn't it your natural right to be strong as the king?"

"Well, I _would be_ just as strong as I want to be – if you hadn't taken Mea from me!" Clemson yelled at her with sudden, vivid fury, "You… you ruined everything! _Everything!_ "

And he drew his knees up close to his chest, wrapped his arms around them and wept. The witch stared down at him for a while until he would look up at her again; through a veil of tears he finally saw a flicker in her gaze, a flash of understanding.

"I told you the price for these powers, and you said yes! I didn't lie to you, nor did I conceal anything from you!" Suddenly there was a glint of mockery lurking in the shadows of the witch's eyes. "You know what I think? You and your friend wanted to trick me. Before you met me, you probably didn't even believe in magic at all, so you wouldn't trust me to be able to conjure up even one spell. You only agreed to the ritual in the first place because you were sure it was all a hoax and you thought you could just get him back later on! You were never ready for all of this; I saw it in your eyes when you shook my paw to seal our alliance. So is it really my fault that your friend had to die – or was it you and your destructive greed for power and strength that killed him?"

Her words cut through him like a razor-sharp bullet.

"No, it wasn't me! How can you say such a thing?!" he cried out, "I loved him… I wouldn't have ever agreed to something like that, had you not provoked an action from me, and tampered with my feelings and thoughts! _You_ were so keen on this alliance because you finally saw a way of putting an end to your ghostly existence and returning to living like a real lemur – that's why you led me into temptation and put me to the proof so unrighteously! You vicious witch – this is your fault and yours alone!"

"Are you so sure about that? You know that it was you who asked me for power first…"

" _Just be quiet!_ " He wanted to silence her, wanted to avoid any further discussion on this subject – but guilt was nagging at him already, slicing through him like the cut of a knife. It crushed him to the ground and began to pull his mind to pieces as her words replayed in his head over and over again. _…This is my fault – all my fault!_

"You have no idea what you've done," he sobbed, "Living as a ghost for so long must've deprived you of any animalism! You don't know feelings anymore… you don't know what it feels like to lose someone."

Seven was silent for a while, apparently considering this. "I'm not sure that's true."

She shook her head, brushed the glass shards aside with her foot, and sat down on the floor next to him. "Look, you're the king of all the lemurs now! Every single one of them is your humble subject – I can give you a hundred other lemurs for companion, if that's what you wish!"

He didn't even bother to say a word in reply to her helpless attempt to encourage him.

"Look, Clemson, you will be the King of Madagascar for all your life now, and everyone will bow their heads to you, and no one is ever going to take that title away from you anymore. You have unlimited power over this island. …So why are you delving into a painful past which cannot be undone – why can't you just look forward and help me be with you? Why don't you just _enjoy_ it – like I thought you would?"

She put a paw to his shoulder, but he shifted it off, glaring at her. "You just don't understand… I'm beginning to believe you never will!"

Seven withdrew from him and watched him dry his tears. Then she drew in a deep, ragged breath. "I think I do understand very well what all this trouble is about." She folded her arms across her chest again, the look in her eyes suddenly turning stone-cold. "The skygoddamn trouble with you, besides the fact that you're never satisfied with anything you have, is that you think you're so special. Nobody could possibly understand you, Clemson. Go ahead, deny it, but it's true. You pretend you want to be king – or at least you tell yourself that this is what you want, while deep down you don't really believe it. You act like ruling this island was enough, but it isn't – not for you! You're even too special to be a king… you won't ever be satisfied, no matter how much greatness you achieve!"

It took Clemson more than a few seconds to register what she'd said. He just kept looking back at her, hoping he hadn't heard her correctly. " _I'm_ the victim in this alliance," he sputtered incredulously, "Don't twist it into something else!"

" _You're_ the one who twists it!" the witch hissed back at him, eyeing him balefully, "I made your dream come true with magic – you have magic by your side, now and forever! It's not even just the lemur people you have at your command, but the crocodiles, the rats, and many others, too – and with my magic you could even conquer a second island, or two, or twenty! You've got more power than any animal could ever dream of – what more could you want?!"

"Ruling Madagascar wasn't my only dream!" he yelled at her, fresh tears welling up in his eyes and blurring his vision, "I still had plenty of dreams I wanted to come true –!" _Dreams I shared with Mea..._

She snorted. "Those are just extra dreams you made after you thought you couldn't ever defeat Julien. Those weren't your real dreams."

"How do you know! A kid like you couldn't even understand…" He broke down again, sobs racking his body unmercifully, and for a moment he wasn't sure if he could ever gather the strength to recover from the pain and tears that rocked his frame. "Just get lost, will you. Begone, witch! – Go back to the hell you came from!" His throat went raw with the force of his shouts. "Witches are just illusions, delusions that aren't meant to exist outside of fairy tales! Go back and wait another thousand years in hell for your next summoner – I don't ever want to see you again!"

"Yeah, sure, I get it! I won't appear in front of you anymore!" The witch got to her feet, clenching her paws into fists. "I'm Seven the Golden Lemur – and even though I'm allied to you now, I'll keep on doing whatever I want! Why don't you just roll over and die?!" she spat hatefully, just before she disappeared right there – a great, golden shower poured down on the marbled tiles where she'd been standing a moment before.

Not knowing what else to do, Clemson stared after her in silence. Back alone in the privacy of his chambers he didn't manage any longer to choke back the wave of despair that had been looming over him all along. He cried, for relief, for help, but no one answered. No one came. Finally he got to his feet, shakily, his legs unsteady, and threw himself back on the bed. He wiped frantically at the tears that continued to stream down his cheeks, hoping for sleep to take him under and ease his aching head, but it wouldn't happen.

"Mea…," he whispered into the darkness, clutching the blanket that was wet with his tears, "I didn't want this… I never wanted this…"

Maybe, in one way or another, their relationship hadn't been like one between two real lemurs. Nevertheless Mea had truly loved him, loved him the only way he'd known how. And he missed that love. Now that he'd talked to him it was as if the grief about losing it was fresh again in his memory – the great, vast emptiness in his soul suddenly flared back to life, throbbing, pounding with an intensity he'd never experienced before. He'd never felt so alone. The hollowness was echoing; darkness was pressing in. Every time he shut his eyes he pictured Mea behind the mirror. They hadn't even gotten the chance to properly say goodbye to each other. He saw him in his mind, recalled the last time he'd really been with him… recalled the android's red eyes that were glittering with amused mockery as he said there was no way magic existed, just before Seven had killed him.

Now Clemson knew that he shouldn't have listened to him. Even though it had been so incredible, even though the whole meeting with the witch and her servants had seemed to have lost all semblance of reality at that point, any lemur must have felt there was something going on. Any lemur…

But Mea was no lemur. _Hadn't been_. He hadn't been able to calculate it. That was why he'd taken it all so lightly. At least until the very last moment… Clemson remembered the last look in his eyes when the android had glanced back at him just before disappearing behind the curtain with the Harpies – a look filled with sudden, genuine terror.

Had he sensed something there – had he wanted to withdraw from this after all…?

Clemson tried not to remember this, tried to push the thought from his mind, but it was _there_ , and suddenly he was overcome with guilt, all-consuming guilt. It wasn't only Seven's words from before – somewhere deep down there was the feeling that this was his fault. That he had made Mea do this…

 _That he had killed him_ –

He pushed back his covers and got up. Everything inside him was numb when he walked over to the desk and picked up the little cogwheel that had once been a part of Mea. He cradled it in his paws. What was Seven thinking – how could he ever move into accepting a loss like this? Mea would always be with him, he told himself, in his memories and in his heart. Even now, as the little bit of metal warmed in his paws, he imagined the android smiling down upon him from Heaven. He imagined how Mea had sung with the angels when his servants had crowned him and his dream had been fulfilled. How he had watched from above and smiled when Clemson had entered the throne room for the first time, and how he'd be with him in spirit when he would carry out Julien's death sentence.

Trying to calm himself with these thoughts he went back to bed, taking the cogwheel along. Finally a half-dazed, comatose sleep came over him, riddled with vivid, disjointed nightmares. Mea was there with him in the throne room, but Clemson could never get to him. Screaming his name, he pushed at unseen paws and tried to fight himself free to follow them behind the curtain. He saw the ghastly apparatus. Saw his own paws covered in oil – it was under his nails and caked across the fine fur on his fingers.

He screamed and screamed, fought the Harpies holding him, fought to come out of the dream, but as soon as he did, he would drift back into another that was just as terrifying.

At times he swore Mea was there beside him, and he was holding his paw. At times he swore he could hear him practice on his guitar or hum the tune of their favorite song. It was loud in his ears. But whenever he opened his eyes, no one was there. He was alone, alone and cold, so very cold… He tried to cover himself against it, but it wouldn't help. The cold had seeped through his bones and to his very soul. Curled up under the blankets he kept drifting weightlessly on the billowing tide of what felt like a fever – until a soft knock on the door ripped him from his state of half-sleep.

He raised his head just enough to see who was entering the room. "Seven..."

He fought to contain his tears to a few breathy sobs. Maybe he'd screamed in his sleep and she'd heard him. In any way he was surprised that she was coming back to see him at all…

Through a haze of pain-filled shadows he heard soft footsteps padding across the carpet, and then she was by the side of his bed. He grasped her paw; he didn't know what else to do. Grief was searing through him almost physically now, tearing through his muscles. He moaned and pressed his face against the pillow, stifling more sobs.

"Listen, we… we shouldn't be fighting like this. I'm sorry, Clemson," he heard her soft voice through the shroud of darkness gathered about him, "I'm sorry that this happened..."

He tried to focus on the face that was now staring down at him, anxiety etched on the graceful features. Pain was evident in her eyes as she watched him suffer.

"I'll try my best to have the mirror fixed," she murmured, "I'll try my very best; I promise!"

"I know." He shook his head. "It's not your fault."

It was his; now he saw it clearly, saw it all. She had been honest with him about every condition of this alliance, and he had tried to trick her, to turn things to his advantage. It was his fault that this had happened. He choked back the guilt and squeezed her fingers.

"I'm fine. I'll be fine... with you."

But he wasn't; he was trembling, trembling all over... it was agony. He was violently ill. Every noise grated in his ears, the slightest breath of breeze from the window felt like razor blades against his skin. He'd never felt so sick in his entire life. He tried to stay quiet, but he could barely keep himself from screaming. It was too much to bear. He swallowed thickly, trying in vain to keep the tears at bay.

"Seven." – His voice was unrecognizable, harsh and choking in his own ears. – "Seven, please… I can't do this… I can't –!" He wept, fresh tears of anguish soaking his cheek fur. "You're a witch… you've got to know something that would help. Anything! Please… make this undone –! I don't know how, but please do… please!"

 _Save me from this, from all of this. Make it fade away. Make my heart a better place…_

But all she could do was stare at him, a thousand questions in her eyes.

"But I can't! Really, I can't! I'm sorry…" She sat down on the edge of the bed, gently taking his trembling paws between both of hers. "It'll get better," she said, but he knew that she had no idea, that she was just trying to comfort him.

"No, it won't. I'm sick, Seven. I'm so sick of it." He'd never heard his own voice so full of agony; he'd never felt so weak before, not even when he'd been a victim of Zookeeper Charlie's… never. He struggled to sit up on the mattress beside her and dropped his head into his paws. "I can't do this. I can't do this."

He thought he heard her murmur something, but he couldn't quite make out the words. When he looked up again she was gone, and he was alone again in the dark room – or wasn't he? As soon as he closed his eyes, he saw someone sitting beside him again, saw Mea's gorgeous, handsome face, his lips curved into a constant smirk, his messy fur, his red eyes shining happily at him… but when he reached for him, he was gone.

 _Please let me go to sleep_ , he beseeched his tortured mind, _Let this all be some terrible nightmare. Let me wake up, safe in Mea's arms… Please…_ He sank under the weight of the horror of this vision. The utter loneliness pulsed through him with every beat of his heart. He bit his lip, trying in vain to stifle the sobs wracking his heaving chest.

"No, Mea, don't leave me! Please, don't leave me! – I didn't mean it… I didn't want what happened to you…!" He wanted to call for him, but his voice was no stronger than a strangled whisper. He collapsed back onto the bed, too weak for anything else, all his energy pent up in a wrecking feeling of sickness and guilt. Crying and shaking, he drew his knees to his chest and pulled himself into a ball, waiting for the world to end.

But then a voice came at him from somewhere beyond the pain...

"Your Majesty."

Clemson pried his eyes open, cringing as bright light assailed them. Seven had returned; in one paw she was holding a three-branched candlestick while with the other she was clasping her head servant's wrist, pulling him into the room behind her. Clemson couldn't hear what they were saying, but he saw her pointing at him with shocked eyes. And then he didn't see anything anymore – suddenly everything was swathed in a red haze, and it seemed like the whole room was spinning, creating a nauseating dizziness.

"Make it stop," he cried, clasping his head between his paws, "Please, make it stop. _Please!_ "

And then Faraday's face was hovering over him, and he helped him sit up and brought a glass of strong red wine to his lips. It burned his throat. The feeling of sickness receded a bit, falling back, surrendering to the sweet heat of the alcohol that swept through his blood vessels and soothed every ill feeling. Clemson found he could breathe again, breathe easily. His muscles relaxed; his body slackened against the bed.

"Thank you," he whispered, pain ripping up his throat again. He winced against it, keeping his eyes closed for a while. Faraday murmured something to Seven before he left; Clemson heard his steps fade away across the shiny marble floor. When he looked up again it was only the witch who was still by his side; she gazed down into his eyes that looked up wearily at her from their bluish, shadowed sockets.

"If only the mirror were still complete... then I could at least talk to him…" Clemson's voice was low and husky, almost a whisper. It hurt to talk.

"Maybe all hope isn't lost just yet," she murmured, sitting down beside his bed, "I sure am at my wits' end with that mirror, but that doesn't mean there aren't others who might know more about fixing things than I do. I've been observing the citizens of Madagascar for a while, and there is one among them who seems to know quite well how to repair things. I heard he lives in the Cove of Wonders, where he stores a lot of strange devices which he sometimes uses to assist people in the lemur kingdom. His name is Timo the Tenrec… the lemurs also refer to him as the 'Royal Science Wizard'. He is said to have invented things that no one else has ever thought or dreamed of before, to even have the wisdom and the power to do miracles! So maybe he can do something for us, too… maybe he knows a way to return the mirror to its original state!"

Clemson's eyes met hers, his eyebrows raised in surprise; for the first time in a long while he was distracted from his grief. Rumors that were spread among the commoners weren't enough to instill in him very much confidence in a stranger's abilities, but it was worth a try – anything to repair the magic mirror.

"Do you think you could… get that guy to work with us somehow?"

Seven nodded slowly. "I believe I do. Listen, you do know that tomorrow is Franksgiving Day, right?"

But Clemson just gave her a blank stare. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Franksgiving is an annual holiday of the lemur people in honor of Frank, the highest and most powerful of the Sky Gods." If she was surprised that he didn't know about it, she didn't show it. "You as the lemur king ought to hold the traditional opening ceremony…"

Slow realization seeped through his stunned brain. A holiday. A festival. Lemurs singing and dancing with lots of noise. He turned away, burying his head under his pillow. "Forget about it. Do I look like I'm in the mood to party? Go handle that nonsense for me, will you."

The witch was silent for a moment; perhaps she hadn't expected that decision from him.

"Very well," she complied then, "Where will you be, if I may ask?"

"I don't know yet. Someplace where this nonsense doesn't affect me," he muttered, "Now what does that have to do with that guy you mentioned?"

"He'll join the festival, too. He may not a lemur, but he's well-known among the people and a friend of Julien's." Bracing her paws on either side of Clemson on the mattress, she bent at the waist and lowered her head until her lips almost brushed his ear as she whispered, "So when the celebration attains its peak, everyone will be distracted enough that I can just slip by and make my way to the Cove of Wonders unnoticed. And then I'll cast a spell on Timo that will render him unable to resist whatever order you command!"

"That... sounds good to me." Clemson gazed up at her, and for the first time his features relaxed into the hint of a smile. "Thank you…"

She squeezed his paw briefly, affectionately, then let go. She got up and backed towards the door, but he reached out a paw for her, stopping her. Suddenly he was gripped by a terrible sense of fear at the thought of being alone again.

"Stay here," he pleaded, his voice ragged and torn with anguish.

He felt sweat break out all over his body again, felt it run down his flanks and stand in cold beads on his forehead. He couldn't stand the thought of her leaving – he knew what awaited him in the dark reaches of the night – the longing, the sorrow, the anxiety… As soon as she left, it would start all over again. And he couldn't take it, not now.

Seven relented; she came back to his side and sat down on the bed with him again. Gently, she pulled Clemson close, encircling him in her arms, and he melted into the folds of her cloak. He swam in her familiar scent as she was comforting him, wiping his tears away, soothing, promising… so tempting, yet so repulsive. Her nearness seduced him, confused him – once again he felt all too clearly that the body she had taken was _Mea's,_ and when he closed his eyes, it was easy to imagine she were him – and every bit of him ached with wanting him, every fiber of his body craved him.

With a sudden movement he pulled her to him. He gripped her head in his paws, his palms pressing into her temples. She flinched. "What are you –?!"

He tipped her head back. Looking into her eyes, he held her captive with his icy touch, his burning stare. She couldn't blink, couldn't back away. Through the leaves of her dress he felt her body, every inch of it pressing against him, devouring him with its closeness. One paw squeezed her breast while the other held the back of her neck, his teeth sharp against her tightly clenched mouth, his tongue probing, daring with insistence, forcing her lips apart – he wanted to feel Mea's kiss, the touch, the taste, the texture. The possession and passion; the love and the lust. Clemson could feel he was there, somewhere deep inside her, he could feel it, but it wasn't him, this was a girl's form, _it wasn't him_ –

It was Seven, the witch, the killer. Seven felt no love for him.

Right now, all she very likely felt was rejection, utter, abject rejection. With all her strength she was straining and writhing as she tried to escape his painful hold, and when he finally pushed her from him she fell to the marble floor, her face twisted with shock and utter agony, cheeks flushed with embarrassment. Staggering to her feet, she opened the door and fled into the black corridor.

Shaking as if struck with a violent fever, Clemson forced his trembling legs to obey and tottered towards the door, calling out after her –

"Seven! Come back! Don't leave me! Seven… Seven!"

But she was gone. As Clemson stared into the darkness, he choked on a sob. Finally, despair drained out of him, leaving only emptiness behind.


	17. Chapter 16 - Franksgiving Day (Part I)

CHAPTER 16

 **FRANKSGIVING DAY (PART I)**

It was to be the day of all days, the dreamed-of day the lemurs had declared the most important holiday in the history of their tribe. However, due to the severe toll the new king's reign had lately been taking on their people, there seemed to be little to celebrate this year.

Usually everybody would be swinging and hopping through the tree canopies now, calling out 'Happy Franksgiving' to one another. However, this time the lemurs who had assembled under the great baobab did not speak a word; total silence was prevailing. Their pale faces reflected anything but a party mood. A pall of sadness lay over the crowd; they'd never had such a sad Franksgiving before, and it was something they all had a hard time dealing with. The tension grew as they waited for their new king to arrive – but Clemson never came.

Instead it was Seven who swung herself up the vines spreading along the branches of the baobab and landed on the big square rock that served as a speaker's desk. Her appearance drew a few shocked gasps from the audience.

"It's the witch!" some called out from a far corner of the crowd, and scattered screams began erupting all over the place.

" _We're all gonna d–!_ "

"Shh… Shut up, Willie!" Pancho clasped his paw over the other lemur's muzzle. "Everyone's scared enough already!"

Seven stared out at the audience, holding herself as tall and straight as was possible for a young girl of her short stature. The other lemurs glanced at each other with terror on their faces and gazed back. She was standing there on the square rock, microphone in paw, looking like she didn't quite know what to say or do. She seemed a bit nervous; all eyes were upon her, all the lemurs harking to her every word.

"Uh… lemurs of Madagascar, may I have your attention, please. Unfortunately King Clemson is, uh… very busy," she finally announced to the audience, "Due to his absence I've been asked to perform the opening ceremony for him, but, uh… I don't really know how that works. I was away for so many years and missed out on so many Franksgiving Days, I simply forgot about all those complicated traditions." – She was announcing this smoothly and in such a light tone this remark even raised a bit of laughter, half skeptical, half amused. – "The only thing I remember is that there was a lot of music and fun. So, uh… does anyone know how we start this?"

"Yeah, hello, _me_ … obviously!" Julien called out, raising his paw up high.

"Julien, no! Remember we should remain as unobtrusive as possible –!" Maurice hissed, but this time the younger lemur would pay his advice no heed.

"…After all, I used to be _king_ here once, duh!" Julien crossed his arms over his chest, looking annoyed. The witch seemed hesitant. Clemson sure as hell wouldn't want this; maybe she was afraid to get in trouble with him. But then she beckoned Julien to join her.

"Then come on up and do it!"

Julien didn't need to be told twice. He grabbed a liana, hauled himself up on the rock next to the witch, and took the microphone from her. "Alright, people, let's put some life into this party!" He pulled his boombox up on the rock, flipped it on and turned the volume up full blast. Familiar jungle beats filled the air, and for the first time the day began feeling like Franksgiving. And finally the mood lightened all around – soon there was a smile on everyone's face as they began shaking their booties to the groove, first in a restrained manner and then very passionately.

"Citizens of Madagascar, today is Franksgiving – the day when every Madagascarian puts their wishes in a basket that is offered to our Sky God brother from another mother: Frank!"

And the lemurs cheered and cheered for Julien, louder and more enthusiastic than they'd done in a long time. Maurice watched his king, smiling wide, soaking up his aura and marveling at how easily he stole the spotlight whenever he stepped onto the scene, how he could make the others shine just by shining from within himself.

"Alright everyone, you know the rules: you get to write down one wish for Frank – only one!" Julien reminded them, "Though, uh… well, we're all going through some pretty tough times right now, so I don't think Frank will mind if some of us slip an extra wish rock into the basket this time."

This heightened the mood even further. Abner and Becca carried the traditional red and white hot-air balloon up to the rock. The Franksgiving wishes varied from ' _free us from the tyrant'_ to ' _give us strength to survive'_ to ' _bring King Julien back to the throne'_ , or something similar. Some lemurs hadn't written anything so far, too afraid that Clemson might actually read what was written on the rocks and punish the writers for expressing wishes that were aimed against him. However, now that they knew the red lemur wouldn't even appear, they took their chances after all; some also repeated their first wish on the second wish rock they were now granted, hoping to make Frank recognize their desperate need for his help.

"Can I write one as well?" Seven asked Julien, twisting a little rock in her paws.

"Uh… yeah, sure," he answered, not sure why she'd even bother to ask his permission or why she wouldn't just use magic to fulfill herself whatever she was wishing for. But she chose to line up with the others, and in a line they all scurried past the basket and tossed their rocks into it.

"Release the balloon!" Julien called out as the basket was brimful with tiny rocks. Hector, who had been announced this year's launch manager, cut the tethers holding the basket, and the freed balloon rose with a mighty flapping of plastic.

Everyone cheered and waved as the basket rose above their heads, and in a matter of seconds it was already above the treetops. Shielding their eyes, they watched as it ascended further into a cloudless blue sky, enthralled by the moment.

"Well, and now it would be time for our number one Franksgiving tradition," Julien said when everyone was looking at him again, "But since a certain _someone_ made a magic mess out of our water park, I'm afraid we'll have to think of something else to amuse ourselves until the ball starts!" Looking at Seven with a raised eyebrow, he said this frankly but not too harshly; yet for a moment Maurice feared he'd gone too far and the witch would lash out at him because of this remark and retaliate with one of her cruel spells.

However, to everyone's surprise Seven just cast her gaze to the ground, bashfully tucking a foot behind the calf of her other leg and murmuring, "Huh, sorry about that. Don't worry – once it's midnight I'll build it all up again, I promise!"

Astonishment stirred through the audience; there were mutters of disbelief.

Julien and Maurice glanced at each other briefly. "Alright," Julien said to her then, "In the meantime, let's go show off our jumping skills on the trampolines instead!"

Cheering loudly, everyone followed him in a mad rush.

To everyone's surprise, Seven kept her word faithfully: at midnight the lemurs made their way over to where the waterslides once had been. The park looked like a storm had swept through it, and Maurice's heart ached at the sight of it; in the eyes of the lemurs around him he could see that they were feeling the same. Raising her wand, Seven stepped ahead; she held up her paws and quietly whispered something to the broken pieces. Scarcely breathing, they watched as the long pieces of jagged wood flew back into place, one after the other, not a crack showing and looking better crafted than they had before.

The lemurs waited breathlessly until the witch had finished her work; it took her quite a while, but when she was done, exhausted and shaking from the powers of the spell, the park was restored exactly the way it had been before – five curved open slides and three straight-down fast slides were just waiting for them to zoom down.

Nearly a minute passed while the lemurs stared at the miracle in front of them – then they broke out into shouts of joy and exultation. Everyone made a dash for the slides they'd been missing for so long, and now they didn't seem to mind that Seven joined them, jumping, splashing, and laughing just like all the others. They were flying down the waterslides, laughing all the way before plunging into the crisp, cool water of the pool area. Then Pancho showed everyone how to do dive bombs, and their futile attempts to emulate him kept them busy for a good while.

There was some delay to the start of the ball since everyone wanted to enjoy the water park which they had so dearly missed just a little bit longer, but finally Horst and some other lemurs began preparing the dance floor.

All dressed up in his best tuxedo, Maurice stood waiting for Julien at the roots of the baobab, where they'd agreed to meet. However, the king didn't show up. Knowing that normally he took forever to get dressed and do his hair, Maurice helped Horst install the DJ desk and set up the loudspeakers in the meantime. By the time they'd finished, the dancing couples were already lined up, row after row. Maurice felt strangely alone.

Then the dances began, but Julien was still nowhere in sight.

* * *

Clemson had thought that if only he locked himself up in the heart of the castle, he would be left in peace for sure, but the celebrations turned out to be so loud and noisy that even through the closed windows and doors he could hear the pounding music, the inane chatter, and all the laughter… the sounds of partying. The day passed unbearably slowly; the more hours that went by the harder it got to ignore the feeling of growing unease and dissatisfaction. Trying to distract himself, he tried fixing the mirror again – however, his repetitive failures only ended up making him even angrier.

Much later, when night had long fallen, a new song began playing down in the lemur village – this time it was Seven's voice, and she was singing his favorite song. A strange sensation flooded him as he recognized it, as if some narcotic had been squeezed into his veins. He tried to shake it off. When he'd heard this song before, it had made happy, the music had warmed his heart – but it wasn't like that now. Now he wouldn't sway his shoulders in time with the music and drum his fingers on the next solid object in front of him while trying to coax some unbearably high notes from his throat. Now, hearing it brought tears to his eyes.

The other lemurs seemed to like it, too; they cranked the volume even higher – torturing him. He couldn't stand any more of this – he had to put an end to this farce and get Seven out of there. He started to leave but then thought twice – maybe, he reflected, the penguins had put a guard out on the castle in order to assure the safety of the festival. That guard would probably be keeping an eye on the main entrance… So he left through the back door in the rose garden instead. Then he made a dash for the village.

To his surprise the water park was completely rebuilt; everyone had assembled there and was either caught in some riotous sliding competition or standing in line, dripping as they waited for their turn on the waterslides. Everyone had bright smiles, shiny red noses and rosy cheeks and appeared to have the time of their lives. _Sickening_.

At the other end of the park, at a safe distance from the water, a stage had been erected; whoever didn't feel like swimming or was already done was singing karaoke there. The music was provided by a DJ spinning the latest hit records, the same blue-eyed sclater's lemur Clemson and Mea had met earlier when they'd arrived in Madagascar.

Clemson waited in the shadows beside the dance floor until Seven would finally take a bow and walk off the stage to make room for the next singer. As soon as she broke away from the crowd he emerged from his hideout behind her, silent, like a wraith.

"Why are you fooling around here when you're supposed to be working for me?!"

She whirled around to face him, his voice startling her. "King Clemson…!" The witch seemed very surprised to see him. "I thought you were… – I was just doing the opening ceremony for you, like you asked me to!"

He grabbed her arm, his fingers biting into her flesh as he dragged her into the shades. He tensed when he felt her cringe and pull away; she probably remembered his assault from the other night. He let her go – but hell, there was no way he was going to apologize for what he'd done. After all, she had brought it all on herself.

"Don't try to make a fool out of me," he said instead, "The opening ceremony's long over by now! Where is that guy you were talking about?"

She stared at the ground, looking both guilty and sad. "I haven't seen him yet. Maybe he's not coming this time… I should go over to the Cave of Wonders and look if he's there."

"Well, off you go then! What are you waiting for?!"

She shifted her feet nervously. "You see, there's a lemur I wanted to ask to dance with me at the ball later, but I haven't seen him around here yet, so –."

"What the _hell_ makes you think I care?!" Clemson hissed. Anger sparked from his eyes, so fierce and relentless it made her step back away from him, her footsteps faltering in the grass as she stumbled. – "You know you are to obey me in all ways… and it's already past midnight, so for Larry's sake, stop wasting time and do what you are told – after all, you have only one hour to find the one we're looking for and make him my slave!" With these words he grabbed her by the chest fur and slammed her against the tree trunk behind her. "Oh, and before I forget – if I ever hear you sing that song again in my presence, I'll wring your neck. Is that clear?"

She stared at him with wide eyes, unable to understand of course, but then she uttered a choked 'Yes, Your Majesty' and that was enough for him. He let her go and turned around, fleeing the terrible place.

Then he withdrew into the mountains, where the music and noise finally couldn't reach him anymore. He kept on wandering there for a while, far away from any living soul, relishing the silence and peace… the same peace he had once enjoyed in the white sands of Morocco, along with Mea. Pale, dejected, and spirit-broken he now remembered all the nights of light and joy under a starry sky, the wild freedom, and the never-ending quiet days – when he closed his eyes, he could still feel the sun and the warm sand underneath his fur when they had rested in the shades of date palms after a long motorbike ride.

They'd had leisure to watch the clouds pass by, slumber under palm trees all day long, or drive around and find oases… they'd had time to dream. They'd just been _there_ , evading the speed of the world, of the urbanized, energy-sucking, smoke-spewing culture they'd been living in all their lives… Nothing had been left of it, and nothing had mattered to them, nothing except the sensations of peace and love and joy that had been pouring through both of them.

And Mea hadn't even wanted to leave for Madagascar, he remembered, he'd wanted to stay… _I don't know. I kind of like it here_.

– The words shot through his mind, catapulting him back into the morass of tangled thoughts he tried to escape every single night since they'd come here. And suddenly he could see all the possibilities for them neatly spliced out in kaleidoscope splinters – there were a thousand roads they'd never taken, a thousand divergent possibilities which would not have led to Mea's sacrifice and this goddamn _loneliness_ and Clemson hurting himself the night before because he just couldn't seem to find a way to get back the one lemur who would never again love him in return.

And when he put the tiny cogwheel to his numb lips again it tasted like oil, like dust of a falling star, and guilt, and guilt, and _guilt_.

Suddenly he breathed heavily, and wiping his face with his paw, he sat down on one of the small rocks. He had everything, everything, and yet there was something missing – missing in the very depths of his heart, and he couldn't argue himself out of this feeling. He thought about the song again and remembered how it had blared from their old ghetto blaster with integral CD player and damaged loudspeaker membrane when he and Mea had been patching up their android army, back in their habitat in Hoboken.

– How back then he would've wished for a life like the one he had now!

 _I'm king. I have everything an animal could wish to have… a crown, a castle, a life of luxury. Mangos more than I can eat. As many servants at my beck and call as I want – every single one of them stronger than any animal… even stronger than any android army I could have ever created. And whatever treasures this island holds, they're all mine; I can claim them easily._

And now he was left with the sobering effect of seeing all his dreams come true. But if he had achieved everything he ever wanted or dreamed of, then where did this feeling that something was missing come from – why couldn't he appreciate his immense success? Why couldn't he just be happy? Because that was what he should be – happy, proud, living his new life to the fullest, every single day. After all, this was what Mea's sacrifice had been for…

But it wasn't what he was doing.

All of a sudden it felt like there was no meaning to all of this… not anymore. It was like the world had lost its sense, its solid character… like suddenly it was without any real substance. He wasn't living anymore – just existing, observing the turning of the world with eyes of stone.

 _What is the meaning of being so lonely,_ he asked himself – was this the feeling he'd need to walk with from now on, for the rest of his life? He felt it in the deepest pit of his soul, felt the terrible yearning for someone forever lost to him, the desperate longing for something he would never know again...

Suddenly he found himself on a cliff edge over a massive gorge that plummeted several thousand feet straight down. To his right two giant waterfalls cascaded off into a stream below, the churning torrents rolling from the cliffs like tears streaming down the face of the mountain. Wildly agitated by the steepness of the fall, dashing and foaming from one rock outcrop to the next, with all the impetuosity and rage peculiar to their element, these waterfalls exhibited a terrifying yet fascinating scene. And when the moon shone forth, tinging the black clouds with silver, and the impetuous torrent at his feet resounded with awful grandeur, he was overcome by a mingled sensation of apprehension and delight. With extended arms he looked down into the yawning abyss, and for a moment his senses forsook him –

 _Plunge!_ everything inside him cried, and for a moment he reveled in the intense delight of seeking such a simple ending to everything that caused him pain.

If he only hurled himself into this abyss, the call of the void pounding in his ears as he surrendered his heart, body, and soul –

…And then the moment was over and he stepped back from the cliff edge and turned his face away, wondering what was wrong with him and how he could even consider such a horrible thing. Slowly, through the choking blackness, he came back to himself – his senses still bewildered, he walked away from the cliffs in a hurry and returned to the lemur village.

He needed to watch their mindless festivities, to seethe over their joy, over the injustice of the fact that they were celebrating while he was so miserable. He needed the rage to keep him alive – rage was all he had left, and he nurtured it like a tiny black blossom on the withered stalk his life had become.

From a branch in the giant baobab he looked down on the crowd from above until he spotted Julien. He stared at him, watched him as he came out of the water park, filled his eyes with the sight of him until he felt that same old urge again, that unwholesome need to dominate, to conquer and destroy until the silver lemur would cower and bent to his will…

How he had loved to hurt him, to humiliate him, always pushing him further. And even now he didn't only want to kill him; he wanted more, much, much more. He wanted to get inside his head, to turn him against himself, to hear him utter the words, _Yes, Your Majesty_. He wanted to break him apart, over and over again, until he would obey unblinkingly even the most degrading demands, crawling on all fours in front of him. He wanted to make him bow his head, feel him break and crumble at his feet, broken and beaten until he begged for death. That was what he wanted for Julien – that was all he lived for now and all that he had ever sought; now he was sure again of what he had to do.

 _I'll throw you into the deepest hell the witch can create,_ he thought to himself, gritting his teeth so hard his jaw ached, _I'll teach you all of my pain… teach you much, much more! I just can't seem to erase that anger and sadness you have brought to my life ever since we met – but you will learn it, Julien! You, the source of my unhappiness – I'll give it all back to you! You shall die, but not before I have made you suffer painfully for every time you foiled my plans, made you lose everything you ever had. I swear you, Julien – I shall not rest until I grind your bones into dust at the bloody bitter end!_

* * *

Kowalski and Timo had only been working together for a couple of hours, yet it already felt like they'd known each other for years. Kowalski had liked the young tenrec from the moment they'd met. When he had asked him about fixing the plane, Timo had told him he'd heard about their attack and immediately offered his help. Although he had no particular experience in aircraft mechanics, Kowalski was sure that together they could work things out and make the _Maverick IV_ airworthy again.

While the lemurs were busy with Franksgiving, the two of them had been working fast and efficiently for quite a while now. To Kowalski's pleasure Timo had a very scientific approach to all sorts of things. He was brighter than most animals Kowalski knew and could come up with various solutions in his approach to a problem. He had a brilliant mind and a sense of humor that was a bit strange but overall not unlikeable.

There always seemed to be something going on behind his hazel eyes; mentally he was so busy with so much that from time to time he had trouble expressing what he meant. That was most likely the reason why he sometimes seemed nervous and overly talkative to those around him. However, as long as they kept the conversation to technical things, they didn't have any problem, and Kowalski preferred that infinitely to the petty small talk he was reduced to ever so often when he was among other animals.

He recalled the last time he'd been working with another scientist – he wasn't given that chance all too often –; it was when he'd worked with Clemson back in Hoboken. Timo wasn't at all like Clemson, not that kind of mad scientist in any way; his mind was full of unordered but beautiful ideas, and he didn't hesitate to tell Kowalski about all of them while they were working, and not a single one of them included any desire for power or for taking advantage of others.

They'd begun the repairs of the _Maverick IV_ by determining the full extent of the damage. They counted 155 holes in the outer hull, which weren't too deep though, so they were both positive that all of them could be patched. The vertical stabilizer, however, was too badly damaged for any attempt at repair, so it needed to be completely replaced. They searched the rusty old cargo ships stranded in the cove until they found a metal part that was both strong enough and approximately matched the shape of the damaged stabilizer.

By midnight they were almost done with their work. While Timo was still busy with the landing lights, Kowalski had already begun the final polishing.

"Where'd you get this stuff?" he asked as he picked up the gaudily decorated can of polish that was resting on the tip of the wing beside him, ogling it suspiciously.

"It washed ashore in a container some time ago," Timo replied as he carefully reattached the glass hood over the light bulb, "It's a marvelous high-luster polish, you'll see. A couple of swipes with that will put a shine even on the dingiest old rust bucket you ever saw. Your plane will look as good as new."

Kowalski shook the can, then unscrewed the cap and moved it in front of his beak as he cautiously sniffed. "Well, I bet another couple of swipes or so will take the lacquer off altogether. This stuff is no good."

"Are you sure?"

The tall penguin nodded. "My nose tells me there's stuff in it that's sure to eat away the lacquer if we use it much. And if a polish can eat away lacquer, it can probably eat away the brass eventually as well. If you don't believe it, polish a spot on the hull of your dive bell every day for a week and see what happens."

Timo pensively brushed back a pawful of his white spikes. "Alright, we just fixed the whole plane, so we don't want to risk that, huh. Don't worry, I have another one. It's in the little green lifeboat behind that rock over there; maybe you'll like it better."

"I'll go get it." Kowalski put the can down and waddled over to the stranded lifeboat Timo had described. It was a little away from where they'd parked the plane; Kowalski could hear the faint strains of a waltz floating down the beach from the lemur village, telling him that the ball had begun. He hoped that everyone would be fine and that Skipper and Clover were having a watchful eye over them. In the boat he found about a dozen more cans of polish, and they looked much more promising to him than the one he'd worked with before. He picked up as much of them as he could carry at once and then made his way back to Timo.

However, as he approached closer, he saw something that made him freeze in his steps –

A bright golden light had appeared next to the plane. Little flecks of something were suspended in its soft, cloud-like center, undulating and moving as it spread –

The pyramid of cans in his flippers tumbled to the ground as Kowalski leapt behind the next rock and stayed as still as if trying to become invisible. His heart thrumming in his ears, he peeked up from his hiding place, wanted to yell over to Timo and tell him to run, but it was too late –

"What the…" Looking up from the plane's hood, the young tenrec squinted his eyes against the light. "Kowalski, is that you?"

His eyes widened as a slender silhouette began materializing out of the vaporous golden haze... and then the witch lemur stood in front of him.

"Oh, no…!" Timo clapped his oily paws over his muzzle, abject fear blazing across his eyes. "Not _you!_ "

"I'm sorry, but you'll have to come with me." Seven stepped up to him, right paw clasped around her magic wand. "Don't worry; it won't hurt…" Muttering a spell Kowalski couldn't make out from this distance, she then touched the glowing tip of her wand to Timo's chest.

He let out a choked gasp as a blue bolt of magical energy shot into him, causing his hair to stand on end. It penetrated the thin layers of his black fur and as soon as it made contact with his skin he went limp like a rag doll, dropping to his knees in front of the witch. His wide-open glassy eyes stared up at her, seeing nothing. Seven kept her wand pressed to his chest, sending more energy into his heart until he choked out some gibberish, and then his eyes turned from dark hazel to a glistening crystal blue.

"From now on you will obey me, Timo the Tenrec; your mind belongs to me, your soul to King Clemson."

He clenched his fists as he struggled against the spell she held him paralyzed with, but the control words slammed through him like a long roll of thunder – finally his arms fell limply to his sides, his head hung low, and his shoulders stooped. "Yes, Golden Lemur." The whites of his eyes had now turned blue as well, as if his blood was bubbling and burning with some kind of azure poison. "I shall serve King Clemson well. His every wish is my command."

"Come with me." – She led him away, and he followed her unresistingly.

Kowalski collapsed against the rock he was hiding behind, trying to process what had just happened. Then, with trembling flippers, he hastily grabbed his radio.


	18. Chapter 17 - Franksgiving Day (Part II)

CHAPTER 17

 **FRANKSGIVING DAY (PART II)**

"DJ Glitterbuns drops the beat, guys! If you want to be a real lemur, you need to shake it. Shake that booty! Grind it on the floor like you mean it! Take the groove, people – take it! It's all yours!"

Six foot tall speakers flanked either side of Horst's DJ table, and the jungle rocked with music as the sclater's lemur flipped a variety of upbeat contemporary tunes using his masterfully constructed audio mixer.

"Hey, Horst, have you seen Julien?"

Still being the only one without a dance partner and now clearly worried, Maurice squeezed himself through the sea of Brown Julien-fueled, pumped-up lemurs toward the DJ table. Horst muted the microphone of his headset for a moment.

"Yeah, I saw him walk over to the waterfalls a while ago. He disappeared in one of the caves behind it, the third one on the left, if I remember correctly."

"Thanks." Maurice followed the directions he'd been given.

Behind the waterfall Horst had described he found a large circular cave, about sixty feet in diameter. A steamy well of hot water churning with bubbles covered most of the ground. Echoing softly, the tinkling, gurgling sound of the well filled the cave, and the air was warm and moist, with a faint mineral tang. Droplets of water trickled from the walls of the cave, but the warmth made the atmosphere very comfortable and cozy.

As soon as his eyes had gotten used to the semi-dark space, Maurice made out Julien's silhouette in the well. The lemur king was sitting with the water up to his chest, ringed tail floating at the surface with only the lower half of it underwater.

"What's the matter with you? I thought you wanted to dance!"

Maurice threw off his tuxedo and descended into the steamy bath beside him, sucking in a breath as the hot water tickled his toes.

Julien sighed. "I know, but… I changed my mind. Sorry for ditching you…"

"No, it's alright. I was just wondering why." Julien just stared into the bubbling water and didn't answer. Breaking the brief silence that ensued, Maurice added, "I mean – this is Franksgiving! And you've been so excited about the ball before…"

"I know, but… " Julien's voice trailed off, and he remained silent for a long while. He didn't look at Maurice when he finally continued, "You know… this isn't a solo dance. This is not me, up there on a stage above everyone, with everyone looking up at me. This is so… _intimate_." – Maurice didn't fail to notice the myriad of emotions crossing Julien's face as he said this, the last one being a shadow. "I don't like it."

The older lemur frowned. "Why not?"

"It's just that…" Emitting a shuddering sigh, Julien closed his eyes. Maurice watched the look of distress on his face with growing worry.

"It's just _what_?" he whispered, daring to move an inch closer to him. He placed his paw on the rim of the well next to Julien's.

"Tell me, Julien. Tell me what's wrong." The sound of Julien's name on his lips was soft, reassuring. The king remained silent for another while, as if trying to gather the courage to speak words he didn't dare to articulate. Then he swallowed hard and took Maurice's paw in his own. "Momo, I want to be out there and dance with you. There's nothing I'd rather do. But I… I can't! I'm sorry…" The words tumbled from his quivering lips in a whisper. "I want to be with you, and not just for one dance. But I can't."

Maurice's breath caught in his throat. He was so stunned by this answer that he couldn't speak for a moment. Those were the most wonderful, yet most devastating words he'd ever heard from him. He had to swallow a few times before he dared to carefully ask, "But… why not? Why do you… why do you want to deny yourself the joy of being loved?"

He spoke quietly, but he was sure that Julien could hear the swell of emotion underlying the question. The king's answer was simple.

"Because it hurts."

The look he gave Maurice was gut-wrenching, and it finally dawned upon the older lemur what this was all about. Suddenly an image from long ago flashed into his mind unbidden – Julien dancing with Clemson, the very first time he'd been invited to the Hoboken Zoo. He'd been duped by silver-tongued words from a lemur he thought would be kind to him. And then he'd been tricked – _hurt_ , perhaps to a point that the ability to trust anyone in these matters would forever elude him.

Maurice found he'd never hated anyone as much as he hated Clemson then. How he wanted to crush him, wanted him to feel the pain he'd caused Julien! Now facing the very consequences of everything he'd done to him back then, his anger at the red lemur reignited – the old rage smoldered in his chest again, but he quelled it, forcing himself to focus only on Julien now. "Not _my_ love," he promised, keeping his voice calm and steady, "I would never hurt you – and if that isn't truth, may Larry strike me dead!"

The king's eyes were filled with sorrow so deep it was unfathomable. He shut them in an attempt to hide the pain, but Maurice wouldn't let him. He cupped Julien's chin in his paws and held it until he would open his eyes and look into his.

"Trust me, Julien," he whispered, "I won't hurt you." He could see in the king's eyes that his words pricked his soul. He brought the silver paw he was still holding to his lips and gently kissed Julien's fingertips. Julien's stiffness began to recede; Maurice's body was now flush with his. Gently he wrapped both arms around the younger lemur, who returned the embrace. Holding him close, Maurice breathed in the scent of his wet silver hair, and then his lips touched him on the forehead in a tender kiss.

"Believe me…" His kiss moved to the tip of Julien's nose. "Trust me."

He stopped, his face a hairbreadth away from Julien's, giving him a last chance to retreat.

Julien's gaze begged him not to.

Cautiously, Maurice's lips found his. Julien didn't resist. He increased the pressure, and his lips slowly parted. The kiss was brief. Maurice was the first to pull away; he drew back and gazed into half-closed, misty eyes. There was invitation and desire in them, but also fear.

"Momo…" Julien's voice was a breathless whisper.

Maurice reached out to caress the lemur king's cheek. "Julien, we both have known each other for a very long time now. You know I place a high value on two things in life – keeping my word and pledging loyalty to those I love. You have both from me. You have my word that I love you and the loyalty and devotion that come with that love. So, please, Julien, I beg you to trust me… I beg you to give love a chance."

Julien shivered. "If only I could." His voice wavered, broke. "I'm sorry…" He drew a trembling breath. "No, you are right. I am overreacting. I can't allow this to be blown so ridiculously out of proportion… I can't let this affect me so much! It's not right; I need to be able to forget about this and move on. I can't be afraid of being loved for the rest of my life… Clemson mustn't be the reason I can't be with you now!"

Maurice shook his head slowly, encircling Julien's wrists with his own paws. "What happened to you was horrible. You have every right to be affected by it!"

He took the lemur king's face between his trembling paws. In that small space of semi-darkness Julien's yellow eyes bored into Maurice's. "Yes, but I thought I was over this. But when I look at all those happy lemur couples dancing out there, I still feel this big weight… The dance parties, the Friday nights in the Hoboken Zoo – it's all so long ago now, but it still hurts…! Sometimes I pray to Frank about it. I say _please, Frank, let this fear go away. Let it be a thing of the past_. But he… he just doesn't seem to hear me…"

Maurice saw in his eyes that he wanted to speak, wanted to tell him about everything that had happened, but the words wouldn't come. Tears pushed past his valiant effort to stifle them, and a sob caught in Julien's throat. Maurice pulled him back into his arms, unable to bear his distress. "It's alright. We don't have to talk about that now."

"It's just that… Clemson…"

"Julien, really. It's okay." He massaged his back soothingly. "I know how hard it is for you to talk about this."

Julien nodded against his chest. "Yes, it is. It's just that I want you to know… that this is not your fault."

The aye-aye's brow furrowed. "What's not my fault?"

"My reluctance…" Julien's voice trailed off as he looked away in embarrassment. "My inability to love… to make love." He seemed to ponder his own words as he looked into Maurice's eyes and saw the passion that lay there.

"Julien, you don't have an inability to love or to be loved. Every single one of your people can prove that, and the look on your face a few minutes ago when you said you wanted to be with me tells me that you have an enormous capacity to love. As for making love, your reluctance is completely understandable to everyone who knows what you've been through."

Julien sighed heavily. "I guess you're right," he murmured, his lips quivering with every word, "But I'm broken, Maurice. Some things can be so broken they can't be fixed. So don't… Don't try to fix me." He choked as he swiped at his tears. The sound nearly ripped Maurice's heart from his chest. His tone was achingly gentle as he ran his fingers over the damp curves of the younger lemur's cheeks to wipe away his tears.

"But I think I could. If only you let me."

 _If he let him…_ Maurice held Julien's gaze, and in his eyes lay the love that he had confessed for him, and he hoped with all his being that Julien would see it. He'd carried this heavy load alone for so long – would he allow Maurice to finally lift it from his heart?

"Prove it," Julien murmured, not looking at him.

The older lemur drew back in surprise. Was Julien saying what he thought he was saying?

"Prove what?"

Julien swallowed hard, still avoiding his eyes. "Prove that you can fix it." His voice was a mere whisper now. "Make love to me, Maurice."

Maurice looked at him, dumbfounded. Was he serious? "Julien, I told you I wasn't going to toy with your emotions, and I won't."

Julien's eyes widened in bewilderment. "You don't want me? But you said earlier –."

Maurice would have laughed if he hadn't seen how serious he was about this.

"Look, Julien, the truth is that I feel closer to you than I've ever felt to anyone in my life, and that there's nothing I'd rather do than let you feel just how much I want you. But… I want to be sure that you're ready for this. Are you sure that you are, that the time is right here and now?"

"I'd be lying to you if I said that I am." Julien moved closer to him and laid his head on Maurice's broad shoulder. "But I do know that the only lemur I want to be with is you. I have no doubt about that."

Maurice swallowed his emotions as they threatened to turn into tears. Julien's words meant everything to him. He was letting him know that he trusted his heart to him. What more could he have asked? The kiss that he gave him held all of the love and gratitude that he felt for him, for the gift that Julien was bestowing upon him. He wanted him to know that his gift couldn't have been cherished more.

"Okay," he murmured into Julien's ear. "Okay."

Julien nodded at him and swallowed, twice, and then Maurice gently, oh so gently took his paw, giving him a reassuring smile. They got up from the well. Julien had brought along some banana leaves, and Maurice wrapped them around him to dry his wet fur a bit so he wouldn't get cold outside. Scooping him up in his arms, he then carried him out of the cave.

No one seemed to notice them as they disappeared; they were all too busy dancing.

Maurice took Julien up the branches of the baobab to his hut, where he laid him down upon his bed. Engulfed in a haze of rapture, the lemur king lay shimmering with pleasure as Maurice's lips descended on his again, and the leaf he had wrapped around him fell away from his shoulders like the petals of a flower, revealing the warmth of his body. The night air washed over him, but he only felt it for an instant before it was replaced by the heat of Maurice's touch. He closed his eyes tightly, shutting out the rest of the world so he could revel in the bright pleasure of the sensation. Inflamed, he lay pulsating as Maurice caressed away his fear and anxieties, showing Julien what it should feel like, determined that he would soon be trembling with want and desire.

And even when Maurice's paws came all over him, it didn't hurt, not in any way – none of the fear Clemson had bred in him was roused by his touch, only a craving to feel more and more yet. Yes – _this_ was what he had longed for, the sensation of every rational thought flying out of him and falling down into pure, burning need.

Need for the tender touch of Maurice's paws, the sweet scent of his damp gray fur, the warm caress of his breath feathering across Julien's brow.

For the look of genuine love on Maurice's face when Julien then lay back and spread himself for him.

For the wonder of discovering how it really was supposed to be.

It had never been like this before, never like this, all flame and passion. Their feelings were so strong, so alive! Their breaths became more rapid as the heat inside them grew. Every single part of each of them thirsted for the other's touch, and Julien wasn't afraid of being touched by him, suddenly he wasn't afraid of anything anymore.

Maurice didn't rush him or push him, and he wasn't harsh with him; that had never been his way. With each tender caress, Julien felt his own desire grow. Tentatively he reached out and let his hot fingertips touch Maurice's furred biceps. His paw plowed through his white chest fur, descending to his stomach. The older lemur stilled as he did so, quivering a bit. Uncertain, Julien wanted to withdraw, but Maurice caught his paw and, with his eyes alone, urged him to continue.

Emboldened, Julien traced his fingers down the length of his torso, downward further, smiling at Maurice's intake of breath that only intensified the spiraling coils of his own tense pleasure. In one brief move, he lay beneath him as the older lemur hovered above him.

Maurice's eyes didn't look away from his as he bent down, raining kisses on Julien's silver fur that were meant to challenge his inhibitions and vanquish everything that was left of his fears. Agile fingers stroked a fire within Julien, slamming sensation after sensation through him in blistering waves. Julien held him close as he nibbled his way from his lips to his throat and then down his chest, teasing and stroking, taking his time tasting him. He writhed gently on the bed beneath Maurice's touch, his lips parted as he breathed deeply, spirals of ecstasy consuming him. His senses whirled. He had never imagined such pleasure. He had never dreamed that he could want the things he wanted now. Maurice's paws burned him as he ran them beneath his hips.

Julien held his breath, writhing in anticipation for more.

Slowly, carefully the older lemur worked his way further down his body, and mind-numbing pleasure crashed through Julien as he replaced his fingertips with his lips.

The world swam. Julien's paws dug into Maurice's hair. He was drunk on the pleasure, giving little cries as heat burned him from whisker to toe and back again. His body tensed, his breathing quickened as Maurice's gentle ministrations continued, until he could feel the tug of liquid need low in his belly, in his loins. He sucked on his bottom lip, his eyes fluttering closed as his head tipped back. And then he shattered, clenched down on nothing as ecstasy stole his breath and the world exploded in a rush of blinding colors and shimmering light.

* * *

 _Do not mix business with pleasure,_ Grandma Rose used to say, and usually Clover always listened to her, but right now she didn't, and yet everything seemed to be working out marvelously. To her surprise she was actually able to enjoy the evening, which was rarely the case during occasions like Franksgiving, with all the potential troublemakers around.

The dance floor was crowded, and there was standing room only behind the tables and in the bar area; yet all the dancers seemed to have enough space. Swaying to the melodic strains of a waltz, she and Skipper glided across the floor, keeping their eyes on everyone in the vicinity in the most unobtrusive way possible. They kept their dance pattern in such a way they were able to cover the entire floor, moving round from the stage to the DJ table to the bar and then once straight through the crowd back toward the stage again. That way nothing that happened could escape their tireless supervision and observation; they were able to do a complete perimeter search and keep track of every detail without actually disturbing the party.

Skipper's plans were entirely successful, and Clover would have lied to herself if she'd pretended that she didn't enjoy executing them the way they did. He was a brilliant dancer, leading her carefully, yet not in a dominant way. She hadn't danced very often – usually, at any dance event she attended, she would form standing patrols outside the space of interaction along with the rest of the Ringtail Guard –, but now she was waltzing across the floor with Skipper in as close to an embrace as they would get.

Clover watched his face as they danced, the recklessly expressive face of a penguin who loved action and danger; his blue eyes kept flickering about the crowd, constantly scanning the lemurs around them, lighting up a bit every time they met hers. Deep down at some point she would've even liked to ask him to have a drink with her, and in his look she could read that he wouldn't have declined, but that would never happen, of course, because they were both on duty and duty always came first.

They broke apart when Skipper's radio beeped, followed by a noisy bout of static. He unhinged it from his shoulder harness and pushed the squelch button.

"Status, Private?"

 _"Emergency Alpha!"_ they heard the rookie's panicked voice shouting, _"Clemson is about to return to the castle!"_

Skipper frowned. "Return? From where? I thought he'd been there all along!"

 _"Rico and I thought so, too. But we just saw him come up the hill and through the yard! Are you sure he wasn't somewhere around the village before?!"_

Skipper and Clover exchanged confused gazes. Clover took out her spyglass and examined the night sky again but then shook her head. "No, there's not a sign of any flying lemurs or anything. The witch was here before, but she didn't do anything that indicated hostile intentions… surprisingly. Everything's perfectly peaceful down here."

They could hear Rico growl something in the background.

 _"Right. Clemson is on his own right now – shall we try to attack him?"_ Private asked.

Skipper thought about this for a moment."No, that's too dangerous. He may be alone, but that doesn't necessarily mean he's defenseless; as long as he's got those demons working for him, who knows what aces he's still got hidden up his sleeve. Keep watching him from a safe distance instead and report back to me if any –."

"Skipper, look." He broke off the rest of the transmission as Clover excitedly pulled him by the flipper, pointing towards the waterfalls. "Julien and Maurice… they're leaving!"

She handed him the spyglass, and he took a quick look to see what she'd seen: Maurice had lifted Julien in his arms and was carrying him gently, tenderly up the baobab tree.

"King Julien never leaves a Franksgiving party early," Clover said, frowning, "Something's not right. I'll go after them."

"No." The penguin leader held up a flipper to stop her. "No, don't."

"But –."

"I think they're fine, Clover. Seriously. They… they don't look like they need to be disturbed right now." – She wasn't sure why he was grinning the way he did, but she knew that she could trust him.

"Yeah, okay."

Before they could talk more, Skipper's radio beeped again. "Kowalski?"

 _"S... Skipper – I think you and Clover better get over here pronto!"_ The scientist penguin's voice was shaking, riddled with fear like they didn't know it from him. _"The witch… she attacked Timo and kidnapped him! Apparently she used some spell on him to alter and control his mind – and now he seems to believe that he willingly works for her and Clemson! He's following her to the castle now – I… I didn't know what to do to stop them…"_

Skipper and Clover stared at each other in shock.

"Oh, dear Frank –!" Falling back on her childhood training with her grandmother, Clover quickly assessed the situation, her mind racing through possibilities – and in that very moment she saw her big chance to finally carry out a plan she'd had in mind for some time.

"We've got to save him! Come on!" – She threw herself right back in the crowd, moving about the dance floor like a mechanized tornado, navigating destructively yet precisely through the tables and chairs and shoving the other dancers out of the way to leave a clear, wide space behind her. Skipper used that space to belly-slide after her as fast as he could.

"Wait! What do you want to do?!"

"I'm going to outwit the witch!" The lemur girl was running next to him on all fours now. "And I need to do it before they reach the castle – the building is huge, and there's no doubt it's full of demons, too. If the witch takes Timo there, our chances to ever get him out again are pretty slim. That means we've got to hurry and catch them before they get there."

"And then what?" Skipper still hadn't figured out what she was up to. "If you get in her way now, you only risk her turning you into a popsicle again, just as she did before!"

"No. I'll provoke her into using the same spell on me which she used on Timo. Of course I'll only _act_ like I'd already fallen under its influence before she can actually turn me into a mindless goon – and I bet she'll be proud to present Clemson with two new servants instead of only one!"

– Seeing the confused look on Skipper's face, she couldn't hide a proud smile.

"Look, our problem is that we haven't been able to defeat Clemson so far because we can never actually get to him, right?" she explained while they kept running, "So if this works out, I can move freely around the enemy's fortress without having to fear an attack since Clemson, Seven, and their whole demon staff will believe that they've got nothing to fear from me, caught in the spell as I am. – That way I won't only be able to bring Timo back, but it's also the perfect opportunity to spot weaknesses in the enemy. Maybe I can even manage to catch Clemson defenseless!"

Although she was well aware of the risks she'd be taking, she was very pleased with her plan. However, Skipper didn't seem to share her enthusiasm about it. He grabbed her by the wrist, yanking her to a stop.

"Clover, no." They stood facing each other, both breathless from the rush, close enough to feel each other's panting breath on their faces, blue eyes staring into green ones. "What if you don't make it and the witch doesn't believe you – what if she really gets you? Or if for some reason your cover gets blown right there in the heart of the enemy's ground? It's just that – well, what you're planning is a very dangerous operation…"

Clover frowned. "Yeah, I'm aware of that. Andthat's exactly why I'd like to get it over with as fast as possible!" With unmasked sarcasm in his voice she added, "I'm the Captain of the Ringtail Guard, you know. I'm used to dealing with dangerous situations."

"Sure, but… you haven't dealt with _this_ kind of danger too often, have you."

"Well, what choice do we have? We don't only need to save Timo; we also have to put Clemson out of commission for good, or else the terror and pain he is inflicting upon us will never end. And you know as well as I do that as things stand, we can only achieve that by finishing him off face to face, so at least one of us would've had to enter the castle sooner or later anyway. – Besides, even if they uncover my ruse while I'm in there, I should have nothing to fear if you guys back me up from outside. Now there's no time to lose – so unless you got any better ideas, will you please let me go?!"

Skipper did. He brushed his feathers back with a nervous look on his face, as if he didn't understand himself why he was delaying her. "Of course, you're right. It's a brilliant plan. Go ahead." He handed her his radio and then cleared his throat. "Sorry."

He looked to the ground, avoiding her eyes. For some reason this made her smile.

"I'll be fine," she said softly, "Don't worry about me, Skipper."

She reached out and squeezed his flipper briefly. Then she set off into the jungle, heading in the direction Timo and the witch must have taken.

* * *

A while later a satiated Julien lay in the curve of Maurice's arm.

"So this is how it feels to be in love – this incredible, indescribable, all-compassing feeling of caring so deeply for someone that you never want that feeling to end," the lemur king murmured, his voice quivering with passion. He turned his head slightly to look at the lemur in whose arms he lay. "Thank you, Maurice, for being that _someone_ for me."

Maurice drew him closer, his body still tingling with the power of what they had experienced together, joy infusing every fiber of his being as Julien whispered these words.

"I love you, Julien." Maurice buried his face against his silken fur, and his lips savored the curve of the younger lemur's neck. He could feel Julien's smile against his chest fur as he wrapped his arms around him and snuggled up close.

A little later Julien slept in his arms while he lay awake, filled with the wonder of having made love to him. Julien was a part of him now. He had blossomed into a flower as fully as the orchids growing down in the jungle.

Maurice couldn't tell him how grateful he was that Julien had chosen him to share this most intimate part of himself, that after such a long time they had finally found each other.

He was about to drift off to sleep himself when he heard voices through the window – agitated voices. Julien's arm was draped over his waist, holding the older lemur to him while he slept; very carefully so as not to wake him, Maurice eased his arm aside, got out of bed, and looked through the curtains.

What he saw made him prickle with fear.

Down in the jungle he could spot three silhouettes, and when the moon came out from behind a cloud he recognized that they were Clover, Timo, and Seven. The young tenrec was standing motionlessly by the witch's side, and Clover was facing the two of them, paws clenched into fists as she was blocking their way. Maurice strained his ears to catch what they were saying.

"You cruel witch!" Clover was yelling at Seven, "You've killed so many of us already! Isn't it enough? Do you need to kidnap and torture your victims now, too, before you finish them off? – So that was why back at the party you suddenly were so friendly with everyone: you probably needed someone to tell you where to find him. It was all a clever trick to get to him, wasn't it!"

"Oh, you! Why do you always have to get in my way?" Seven shouted back, "Just let me do what I have to do!"

Clover wouldn't move aside. "What have you done to him?"

"I influenced his mind to comply with King Clemson's wishes."

Clover was silent for a moment before she replied, "I don't believe you. A spell as mighty as this simply cannot exist! – Timo, you traitor! You must've been bought off by the witch; that's the real reason why you're working for her and Clemson now, isn't it!"

Maurice thought there was something odd about the way she said those last words. Seven, however, didn't seem to notice anything.

"What are you saying!" She jutted her chin at Clover in defiance. "A mere animal like you has no idea about magic. If you don't let us pass, I'll show you how real this spell is!"

Clover crossed her arms in front of her chest with a haughty smirk on her face. "Ha! That, I'd like to see! If such a spell existed, perhaps it would indeed work on Timo – his mind has always been a little… weird. But there's no way a third-class witch like you could evermanage to get inside _my_ head and make me do things!"

" _Third-class witch?!_ " Anger flushed her cheeks; now Seven seemed really upset. "I'll make you take back those words!" She whipped out her wand against Clover. A crystal blue sphere of energy had barely begun glowing at its tip when Clover was already on her knees, gasping and choking, and clutching her head in both paws. "I… I'll do whatever you want, Golden Lemur. I surrender my will to yours; I give you my entire self as a living sacrifice. My mind and soul are yours."

Maurice clapped his paws over his mouth, eyes wide. The witch had broken Clover! How could she have done something so reckless, provoking her like this? Maurice knew her – always one for a challenge, courageous and audacious to the point of foolishness! – but why, oh, why did she have to risk so much?!

But now it was too late for regrets – Clover got to her feet and, with hunched shoulders, dragged herself over to stand obediently beside Timo. The witch lowered her wand and looked at it as if its power surprised even her.

"Ha! How dare you make fun of others when your own mind is so very weak? I haven't even finished the spell, and you're already willingly under my command!" she mocked Clover, "How foolish of you that you would think that you of all animals could resist my power! If you had held in check a little your arrogance toward me, you see, that would've served you well; but now you're going to have to live with the result of it. You will make a splendid servant. Come with me, both of you."

– And with these words the witch led Clover and Timo away into the darkness.

Maurice remained frozen at the window, struck speechless by what he'd just seen, until a voice ripped him from his thoughts.

"Come back to bed, Momo." – He turned to find Julien sitting up, hugging the blankets around his drawn-up knees, his cheeks flushed with sleep, his yellow eyes hazy and filled with warmth as he looked back at the other lemur. "What's going on?"

A stab of tenderness made Maurice's heart ache as Julien looked at him like this, and for a moment he had to fight the impulse to get back to him and run his fingers through his tousled fur and hold him tight. But then fear overpowered every other sentiment.

"I think we'd better get down there fast."


	19. Chapter 18 - All That I'm Living For

CHAPTER 18

 **ALL THAT I'M LIVING FOR**

Back alone in his chambers, Clemson waited for Seven's return.

Franksgiving Ball was finally over, and everything was silent again; he was feeling the usual creeping melancholia again that had become his nearly constant companion. As the night dragged on it turned into a fever, peaking, looping and spiraling in the room. The specters of the past were gaining on him again. Colors danced on the ceiling, talking to him; voices were whispering into his ear, but he didn't understand what they were saying.

He didn't know why he trusted Seven to find someone who could actually help him – after all, Timo was only an animal; how could an animal achieve something not even magic could do?

He didn't know why he'd ever trusted Seven at all.

He lit all the candles in the room, but their light did little to dispel his lurking depression. An unsettling dread had seized his mind, and no logical reasoning could ease it. If life was a video tape, he suddenly thought to himself, he'd want to press fast forward – he just wanted this to end as fast as possible. He pushed the thought away and sat down upon a stool by the window, smoking as he looked out upon a small part of the jungle. The candles cast dancing shadows on the stained glass, and he tried his best to lose himself in the flickering shapes.

Not a creature moved out there in the empty space of green trees and gray rocks and quiet huts. Ugly was the world, and empty, empty...

It seemed to him as if in that moment, for the very first time, he saw life as it really was.

Once again he had the feeling that time was folding in on itself. It seemed only minutes had gone by, but the shadows were lengthening and growing narrower as, one by one, the candles burned down. He didn't bother to replace them, but when the last of them died out, he shivered as he found himself cloaked in total darkness.

He fled his chambers and went down into the throne room instead. The room was lit only by muted light falling in through the windows. Outside the night sky hung heavy, like a black velvet death shroud upon the world, and the wind was a low, shrill whistle that sometimes rose to an angry roar.

The whole room was completely empty – hushed and abandoned, gray and cold... heedless of his needs. He hadn't realized how vast it was, not when his servants were inside there with him, surrounding him. Only now that he was alone, he seemed to feel its true size. In the dim light the long sweep of the arched ceiling gave it a cathedral-like grandeur. The windows had been left open overnight; the air was cool and clear, and the night wind blowing in, fresh from the south, gave another drop of intoxication to his bewildered senses. It filled the room with the scent of the distant sea and, in concert with the moon, made strange silver shapes of light dance across the walls around him.

Clemson shivered at the sight. Were these the throes of a fever raging inside him, or a divine presence, the presence of Frank himself –?

He didn't know if the Sky Spirits were real. But if they were, they'd probably want nothing to do with him. Not when he was so horrible, not when he was such a miserable mess. Not after he'd pushed another lemur to kill himself in an attempt to fulfil his own desires. He was selfish and brutal and… wrong. Every part of him was wrong.

But they said that Frank loved every lemur, he remembered, regardless of where they came from, what they had done, and where they were going. So perhaps it was time to call upon him for his help... Obeying the first wild impulse of his heart, he rushed forward and knelt down in front of the dais upon which his throne stood, paws clasped in prayer.

"I can't take any more... I have no more strength." – The words came upon his lips in faint gasps. – "I can't take any more...! The gates of Heaven are sealed to me. – Don't you hear me, Frank? Don't you hear me?"

He turned toward the open window, and his weary eyes lifted to the sky. He didn't move; moonbeams fell slowly upon his face, and the faint light entered his very soul.

"Let the night end… What am I looking for? My memories cruelly mock me. Oh Sky Spirits, tear up the darkness! What shall I do? I have no place I can stay. Oh Sky Spirits, grant it – what should I do?"

Blinking his eyes rapidly, almost as if in a trance, he was praying out loud and extemporaneously now. "Frank, I've never played the game of life very well, and it seems now that my haughtiness and my pride became my undoing. All my life I've wished to become king – I saw myself covered in gold from whisker to toe, and it was all I could think of. Now I have reached all that – and yet I found that I have gained nothing of worth, while I have lost so much to make this dream come true. I seek you out, Frank, to ask you how to go on from here – to ask you to rescue me from this downward spiral my life has turned into, a spiral of doom that continues each passing day."

His eyes began filling with sorrowful tears as he spoke – the last words choked in his throat, and then he threw himself upon the steps of the dais and wept. He beat his fists upon the floor as if he hoped that the noise he made, echoing through the empty room, would summon Frank to him from the Heavens. But no, not even an angel descended to stand by his side, to dry his tears with a robe of white silk, to bring peace to his dying heart.

But maybe this was all in vain – maybe Frank would never hear him because he _wanted_ him to feel this way. New depths of hopelessness drowned him at this thought.

"Oh, ugliness, ugliness! Grief and despair, horror and heartache! Is there nothing else in this world, beneath the arch of Heaven? What is it that I am living for – am I blind, too blind to see Heaven? Frank, let this cup of suffering pass from me – oh, Frank, don't you leave me to die! Don't you leave me to die!"

 _Maybe he will not hear me because my heart is filled with evil,_ he thought bitterly to himself – but how could Frank allow such an evil thing as was his yearning?

Upon this thought his grief turned into fury, and he directed it all at the Sky God.

"How dare you strike me like this, Frank!" he cursed, shaking his fists at the sky, his cries reverberating loudly off the high ceiling. His face grew darker and darker, and the veins stood out beneath his brow. "What goodness, what justice is in you, who allows such misery to be as the one which afflicts me? How can you tolerate the sight of my anguish and not do anything to help me? Do _you_ know what it's like – when Heaven's hung in black? Do you know what it's like, when all the walls around you are black and bleak, when paradise is forever lost to you? – No better than Larry are you, no different from your greatest antagonist, the volcano god, who rules with fear and who kills for pleasure! How can you let this happen – where are you, Frank, when this happens? Where in my life are you?"

The words burst from his lips, and he cried and cried and went on crying that question, and his screams mingled with Mea's death screams that were so loud, so loud in his ears.

– "I'm losing Heaven's light. I waste away at the blow of your divine paw. Only a breath is any lemur to you; and you dissolve like a cobweb all that is dear to me! Hear my prayer, O Frank – if you exist, and if there is good in you, then I beg you to take away your scourge from me, to send the demons I am stuck with back into hell and undo all the pain they have wreaked upon me! – With all that is left of my life, I beg you – from the spirits that I called, Frank, deliver me!"

And then he couldn't pray anymore as his throat was sore from weeping.

"Just tell me one thing, Frank…" he sobbed, the strangled words barely escaping his lips, "Should it hurt to live – should I feel like I do…?"

He lay down on the stone floor, his body exhausted, his hate yet unspent. There he remained in a fever of desire and a torment of bitterness, praying to Frank in one minute, cursing him in the next, until he heard sounds from outside – muffled voices, approaching footsteps. He flinched, closed his eyes hard. Darkness flattened seconds into hours. At first he wondered if he were imagining things.

But no. _Three voices._ Two were unidentifiable, but one of them was definitely Seven's.

Then the door gave a telltale swish over the red carpet –

With silent breath he dragged himself to his feet and went to greet her.

"King Clemson…!" She seemed surprised to see him; maybe she'd expected him to be still asleep, maybe it was his sight that scared her – his bleared face, his eyes shadowed with black, his lips and cheeks horridly drained of their color, his fur metamorphosed into a matted mass. He didn't care.

"I see you've done your duty." His eyes flickered briefly over the young tenrec by her side – he had to be the one she'd been talking about – and then caught sight of another figure behind her, and his heart almost stopped in his chest.

"What the hell is _she_ doing here?!" he gasped, very nearly ready to turn and run from the familiar warrior lemur who was staring him in the face with strange wide eyes.

"Don't worry; she won't do anything to you. She's under my spell, just like Timo!" the witch explained proudly, "And just like him, she will work willingly for you now. She is said to be a good and valiant fighter; I thought you might be pleased to have her support."

To his great surprise Clover bowed to him, something that he never thought he'd ever get the chance to see. "It is my strength and power that you call upon for whatever you wish, Your Illustrious Highness."

Her words were the right ones, but for some reason she didn't have the same scary ice-blue eyes Timo suffered now that he was under Seven's influence… He didn't know what to believe, and he couldn't risk anything. He remembered all too vividly how Clover had tricked him before.

"No. I don't want her here. Kill her."

Seven blinked her eyes in surprise. "But, Your Majesty –."

"Kill her!"

– But the witch made no move to follow his order. While she'd been all too keen on killing other animals before, for some reason the thought seemed repellent, perhaps even odious to her now. "I could send her to stand guard on the battlements," she suggested carefully.

"No, I said – …Wait, that's a nice idea, actually. That way she gets to battle her friends when they try to attack us in order to free her and that guy here, and they sure will. I'd love to see that." He watched Clover's eyes closely as he said this, hoping for any sign that would tell him whether or not she was faking her obedience, but she kept an absolutely straight face and displayed no emotions whatsoever.

"I could also guard Timo while he is working for you, King Clemson, in order to make sure that the results are to your liking," was the only thing she replied, "It would be my pleasure."

Clemson's eyes bored into hers, scrutinizing her. Challenging her. He got nothing but an empty stare. He shook his head, signaling for Seven to lead her away.

Then he turned to Timo. "Come with me."

* * *

Clover managed to escape much more easily than she'd expected.

There were Harpies everywhere around her – up on the high crenellated battlements, peering out of the windows, standing guard outside the main entrance –, and at first they'd been very suspicious, but when Seven had explained them that Clover was under her influence and was working with them now, they'd let their guard down. Eventually they'd even included Clover in their ranks and treated her with the same suspicion and superiority with which they treated each other. Clover fit well into their army; being the warrior that she was, she was able to perfectly copy and mimic all their military movements and gestures.

None of them had a reason to have any suspicion of her.

When one of the demons tasked her with guarding the East Tower alone for a while, Clover used her chance to go off on her own and disappear in the depths of the castle.

Now all she had to do was find Timo. If only Clemson had allowed her to guard him in the first place – then she wouldn't have had to risk her cover and her life searching the entire castle for him now! She decided to use the opportunity to explore the huge building further.

However, even after she'd been wandering through darkness and hallways for what felt like forever, she still hadn't discovered everything about it – partly because it was so huge, partly because it had so many secret passages and hidden rooms. They opened up to her when she pushed bricks, moved picture frames, and fiddled with the knobs carved in the mantelpieces of the fireplaces, and they all seemed to be leading her round in circles somehow. The only place exempt from that system of secret passages seemed to be the dungeons; they belonged to the deepest and most ancient part of the castle and could only be accessed by descending a spiral staircase in the center of the building.

It took her a very long time until she had gained an overview of the most important rooms and places. Still there was no sign of Timo.

She was just about to explore a richly decorated sleeping chamber in the east wing when she suddenly heard a creak of wood behind her. Someone was coming down the hallway –

Panic clutched around her heart. She scooted over against the wall to make room for the arriver to open the door and come inside. But the door didn't open, and the silence fell again – a silence far from empty. Even with her back to the wall, she had the sensation someone was sneaking up on her. She was right in the center of hostile territory; there were too many enemies around her, and she knew it was only a matter of time until her cover would be blown. She needed to get out of here.

Carefully she opened the door, just a crack, and peered out into the corridor. Her heart skipped a beat when she recognized the dark figure standing there – Clemson slipped into the room right next to the one she was hiding in and locked the door behind him.

Clover hurried over to the joining wall and pressed her ear up to it. She could make out that somebody was talking… two familiar voices.

Clemson and Timo were over there.

Tail twitching with nervous anticipation, she started looking for any kind of passage that might lead over into the other room. While crawling on her paws and knees, she spotted a small beam of light under the bed; it led her to a vent that went from one room into the other. _Bingo._ Flat on her belly, she wiggled to get closer to the vent. Then she looked around at what little she could see of the other room within her limited range of vision – her heart lodged in her throat at the sight which presented itself to her view.

Timo was kneeling in front of a broken mirror. The floor around him was a mess of shattered glass, pieces of plaster, and wood splinters.

"What do you mean, you can't fix it?!" Clemson was standing before him, glowering down at him and pointing a threatening finger at the half-repaired mirror. Timo must have tried his hardest to fix the broken glass, acrimoniously picking up the pointy shards again and again until his fingers were stained red with blood – yet he hadn't made it. He'd done a remarkable job in putting the shards back in the frame, yet thin cracks still marked clearly where the pieces joined one another, and there was no way to get rid of those.

Clemson must be mad to expect anything more from him, Clover thought to herself. A broken mirror was a broken mirror, however carefully glued together it might be.

"Please... it's not my fault!" the tenrec pleaded, "I swear I did my best –!"

"Why, really? If that is the best you can do, little nerd boy, then the lemur people really are to be pitied for having to call you the best mechanic in the village!"

Clemson grabbed the mirror by the frame to look at it more closely, but in his anger he used a little too much force, and a part of the fragile glass structure Timo had just fixed broke to pieces again. That increased his rage to such a frenzy Timo's eyes went wide with fear.

"You useless lump of lard!" Clemson yelled at him, "How dare you disappoint me like this! I am your king – you are to devote your best efforts to carry out my orders!"

And then he raised his paw and hit the young tenrec across the face, once, twice. It caught Timo completely unaware; he jumped to his feet and staggered back, screaming in fright as much as in pain. Clemson had hit him hard on the ear where he knew it would hurt most. His next punch knocked him back to the ground; Timo lost his footing on the glass shards under him, leaving spats of blood markings swiped across the floor. Lashing out with his right foot, Clemson caught him on the side of his face, throwing his head back with a loud crack of bone. The spell that made him Clemson's slave prevented Timo from defending himself properly. Whimpering, he merely crawled back a little, desperate to put distance between them, his mouth welling with blood that spilled over his chin and poured down into his chest fur.

"No...please, you're hurting me...please stop," he begged, "I'll do whatever you want! Just stop, please! M… maybe I can help you with something else instead…? I could build you a new throne, or fix the roof of your castle, or –. "

 _"_ Just keep your mouth shut, you worthless little retard!" Clemson bent down and grabbed his spikes, yanking his head back, ripping free some of his hair at the root.

"How the hell can you do this to me?! How can you? Don't you understand how important this is, how much this means to me… Don't you understand, fool…!"

For a moment he sounded more weary than furious, more desperate than authoritative. Then he roughly grabbed Timo's swollen, blood-smeared face in his paws and pushed him back against the wall as he stared coldly into the tenrec's eyes.

"You'll pay a heavy price for disappointing your king like this." He kicked him again, this time into the ribs – another crack. Timo yelled in agony.

"Please," he managed, "Please don't…" He was gasping with pain and clutching his broken ribs. "Please… I can't breathe…!" He slumped down the wall, leaving blood lines down the bright wallpaper and then lay crumbled on the floor, more blood flowing from his muzzle as he squirmed and tried to crawl in a futile attempt to escape.

"You don't need to breathe when you're dead," Clemson hissed – with these words he reached for his gun on the shelf above them and pressed it against the underside of Timo's chin, rubbing against his broken jawbone. The young tenrec closed his eyes with a whimper, a lone tear slipping out from under his eyelid, running down his bruised cheek.

And then Clover could no longer bear to watch this. With the heel of her paw she popped the vent grid out of the wall and leapt into the room, putting everything at risk – if Clemson turned and fired at her as she flew straight at him, she wouldn't stand a chance –; but he was too caught up in his rage to even hear her. From behind she struck the side of his neck with full force, sending him crashing to the floor. The red lemur gave a surprised shout – the gun slipped from his paw, and she snatched it up from the floor and pointed it back at him.

Without a moment's hesitation she pulled the trigger –

 _Click._ Clemson's magazine was empty.

Maybe he'd just wanted to intimidate Timo. Maybe he hadn't even known.

Clover threw away the useless weapon with a loud curse and then wrapped her fingers around Clemson's neck instead and began strangling him. She liked it better like this anyway. He gasped and choked as her paws tightened on his throat, yet offered surprisingly little resistance. His eyes bulged out and began to roll back in their sockets, and she smiled as she felt the life in his body slowly drain through her fingertips. She kept squeezing unmercifully until –

"Hold it right there!"

A harsh voice echoed through the room from just beyond the door. Clover froze. When she looked up she saw the witch's slender form filling the doorway – Seven was standing there, pointing her wand threateningly at Timo. "Or I'll finish off what's left of him."

Clover held on to Clemson for a moment longer and then shoved him away from her. He collapsed on the floor like a rag doll and lay there, gasping for air, his eyes no more than glazed slits, staring up at her. Biting back a curse of frustration, Clover slowly raised her paws over her head.

"You damn impostor," the witch hissed at her, "I'll get you yet!"

Clover feared she would repeat the spell she'd tried to cast on her before and make sure it would work this time – however, to her surprise Seven just let the wand drop to her side and moved away from the door and over to Clemson instead. "Are you alright, Your Majesty?"

Clover didn't waste a second – their chance to escape was now or never. She grabbed Timo by the paw, dragged him to his feet and then out of the room as fast as possible.

" _Stop them!_ " Clemson's loud, angry voice echoed after them.

It faded into the background as they started running down the corridor. Clover felt Timo strain against her, struggling to break her hold as she dragged him along; the spell made him do it. However, weakened as he was, she managed to make him follow her.

She scuttled down a flight of stairs, never letting go of his paw. At the foot of the stairs she motioned Timo against the wall and peeked around the corner. Sixty feet down the next hall she spotted at least five Harpies heading their way. _Too many_. They had to go back the other way. They ran to the other end of the hall and peered around the corner in the only direction left to go. Several Harpy guards had burst into that hallway far down on the right and were also headed this way.

Clover pulled back. They were trapped.

Before she could figure out what to do, she caught a flicker of light darting past her.

" _This way_ ," a voice hissed close to her ear – a moment later, covered in a shower of glowing butterflies, the witch reappeared on the corridor a few steps away from them.

She waved them into a room nearby.

With hesitating steps Clover and Timo followed her past the threshold. The room was small, dominated by a heavy wooden wardrobe and a grandfather clock several feet taller than the three of them; Clover remembered this clock from her previous explorations, but she hadn't really looked at it more closely. Seven opened its glass-paneled door. The wood behind the counterweights seemed solid. But when she climbed a chair and touched the hands of the clock with the tip of her wand, moving them to point straight up, as if it were midnight, there was the whisper of a sliding panel – the back of the clock had disappeared, exposing a hidden passageway behind it. Seven squeezed her way through the clock's door and waved for Clover and Timo to follow her.

"What, now you're helping us again?" Clover snapped at the witch as they were running side by side through the narrow passage, "Could you make up your mind, for Larry's sake?!"

Seven ignored her snide remark. "Listen, I need you to tell me where Karl is."

"What?!"

"Don't you understand? I need that Moon Pearl!" To Clover's surprise the witch sounded genuinely concerned. "I need it to fulfill Clemson's greatest wish… if I do that, I'm sure he'll be much more content than he is now, and then he'll finally leave the rest of us alone."

"Why the hell should I trust you, after all you've done to us?!" Clover hissed back, "I have no idea where Karl or the bloody pearl is, and if I did, I sure as hell wouldn't tell you!"

"No, wait!" Seven grabbed Timo by the wrist, stopping both him and Clover. With a wave of her wand she then relieved him of the spell. The brilliant blue immediately receded from Timo's eyes, and they returned to their docile hazel color. He blinked a few times; then he braced himself against the wall, clearly disoriented. "What… what happened?"

That mollified Clover's anger against the witch a little.

"Listen, I… I don't want to hurt or kill any more of your people," Seven murmured, hanging her head. "I promise you I won't use the pearl's power for any of this. I'll only use it to fulfill him that one wish; if he gets what he wants, he'll stop asking me to do harm to any of you."

"That's what you think." Clover gave a mirthless laugh. "Because you don't know Clemson. Let his will prevail – and soon enough he'll find something else to burden you with. He is greedy beyond all bounds; animals like him never have the impression of ever getting, or having asked for, enough of something or from someone. His lust for power has always existed, but when you made him king of this island it has surpassed all limits and become madness. And if you stay close to him, I guarantee you that sooner or later this madness is going to ruin you, too – and the fact that you're a witch won't change anything."

They had reached the end of the passageway; faint light shone in from the corridor beyond. "Look, I don't know much about magic… but if there's just _any_ way for you to do this, I recommend you get away from him as long as you still can."

– With these words Clover left the young witch standing there in the darkness as she pulled Timo behind her, speeding out of the passageway and into the next corridor.

Together they scurried through the winding corridors, through the main hall, down two flights of stairs, along the landing and into the first room below the ground floor.

It was the castle's buttery; Clover had discovered it during her explorations before.

She pulled Timo inside and slid the door back closed. The two of them squeezed into an empty barrel and Clover closed the lid over their heads. Once inside, darkness closed around them, and in the blackness she heard Timo sob quietly.

"Clover, what… what happened to me?! I almost hurt you, and I don't even know why…!"

"Shh… it's alright," she murmured, patting his shoulder soothingly while she fumbled for her radio. "Everything's going to be alright. Don't worry." She fiddled with the knobs until she got rid of the static noise. "Skipper, do you read me?"

* * *

"Are Clover and Timo alright?" Private asked excitedly after Skipper had ended the transmission. The leader nodded.

"Yeah, they're fine. They couldn't make it out undetected though; now they're stuck somewhere in the cellar, so we need to bust them out."

After Skipper and Kowalski had met in the Cove of Wonders, they'd reunited with their brothers in front of the castle. All four penguins were now hiding in the surrounding woods. From their hiding place they could see movement on the battlements; large torches were aflame, highlighting the silhouettes of Clemson's servants keeping guard.

"Guys!" a voice called out from behind them; when they turned around they saw Julien and Maurice stumbling through the undergrowth toward them in great excitement.

– "The witch… She got Clover and Timo!"

Skipper signaled for them to keep their voices down. When they were standing before them his gaze fell to their intertwined fingers for a moment, but he bit back the comment lingering on his tongue. "No, she only got Timo," he said instead, "But don't worry; he's okay again now. And Clover was just acting as if she'd fallen under the witch's spell. It was all a trick to get inside the castle; look here, we're remaining in contact by radio. She almost made it, but now the two of them need a little help. She said the castle has a three-level system of cellars, and they're stuck on the first one directly under the ground floor. We need to storm the place and get them out of there."

"And how exactly are we supposed to do that?" Kowalski asked, scrunching his brows together, "Even if all of us strike with united force, we can't just penetrate and ravage that castle. The whole building is teeming with lemur-like beasts equipped with supernatural powers; we can already see a dozen of them up on the battlements from here. If we only show them a tail feather, this'll become a suicide mission before we know it."

Rico growled his agreement, and Skipper, too, nodded thoughtfully.

"Right… if only we had _magic_ by our side, too! – Does anyone know where that fanaloka is? Maybe he knows something."

But they all shook their heads cluelessly; nobody had seen Karl since he'd disappeared after his previous encounter with Seven in the water park.

"You will not need his help," a soft female voice suddenly whispered from the bushes behind them, "This time you will have mine."

* * *

Back on his feet, Clemson immediately marshalled his Harpy legions around him for constant shelter. Now that he knew that Clover was running around freely in his castle, he feared another attack upon his life any second. He also guessed that she hadn't snuck inside here unprepared and that her allies were waiting in the vicinity, so he possibly had to anticipate an attack from outside as well; therefore he also sent some of his troops to stand guard in the large corridor leading to the main entrance.

The Harpies were cackling and fluttering about, stirred into a nervous frenzy after they'd learned that there was an impostor in the castle who had even been serving with them before. Clemson was glad when Seven returned and helped him bring some order into their chaotic ranks.

"Have you found Clover and Timo yet?" he asked her.

"No, but they must still be somewhere inside here." – She pointed toward the drawbridge in front of the entrance portal; it was up, which meant that no one could get in or out. – "So it's only a matter of time before we discover their hideout."

Clemson caught a fleeting glimpse of something in her eyes that told him she was lying.

However, he had no time to find out about this –

A shout went up from the row of demons assembled in front of the drawbridge. One of its chains had suddenly been cut through as if struck by an invisible blade, and the drawbridge shook and trembled. A few more blows followed – the chains that had been pulled taut snapped one by one, and then the drawbridge fell open with a mighty crash.

Clemson's servants threw themselves backward with a scream.

An amorphous haze of golden mist sank, clinging to the ground in the cool night air.

At the other end of the drawbridge stood an elderly chameleon woman, a light hue surrounding her entire form, graceful fingers curled around a slender, wooden wand. Butterflies were fluttering all about her, glowing wings brushing her scales. The night wind gusted for a moment, causing her neck frills to flap majestically about her wrinkled face.

Instant silence fell as soon as she stepped inside the hall.

She inclined her head in greeting toward Clemson's old head servant. "Faraday."

– He nodded back, more pleasantly than he had been greeting Clemson for some days.

One of the demons stepped ahead, its left paw turning into a sharp blade of light.

"Who is that animal? How does she dare enter here without King Clemson's permission?!"

"Don't bother," said Seven, and the demon's paw reassumed its original form. "This is Lady Masikura, my former teacher… the only teacher of magic in all of Madagascar."

Seven's voice was quiet, almost solemn. She and Masikura held gazes for a long moment, each one reading their mutual past in the eyes of the other. Then the young witch stepped ahead, her head held high with unshakeable self-assurance, until the two of them were standing face to face. Ice and smoldering flames and pointed steel were in her voice when she spoke again.

"My, my, Teacher… I never once dreamed that the day would come when I would meet you once more."


	20. Chapter 19 - Show No Mercy

CHAPTER 19

 **SHOW NO MERCY**

"It's been a while, Yasu." Masikura opened her eyes and smiled at her former student.

"Ma..." For a moment Seven just stared at the chameleon lady. Then she returned the smile, but Masikura felt no warmth from it. The lemur girl's gaze fell to her wand, and her eyes narrowed to slits. "So Karl gave it to you then," she murmured darkly.

Masikura looked down at the Moon Pearl attached to the tip of her wand.

"He told me he wanted it to be in the hands of a magician who knew how to deal with its enormous power… safe from anyone who would use this power to toy with animals' lives," she explained, a meaningful undertone to her words.

The young witch's scowl grew even darker. "I must ask you to give it to me."

"I'm afraid I can't honor that request."

"Then I will fight you for it." Seven thrust out her wand against the fortune teller. She glanced back over her shoulder as if looking for Clemson's approval of the oncoming battle, but the red lemur had disappeared; he was probably hiding somewhere deeper inside the castle where he thought himself safer.

"I'm not going to fight you," Masikura calmly replied, "Ever since I heard you had returned to this world, I hoped to finally make peace with you."

Seven shook her head slowly. "Give me the pearl. Then we can talk," she replied, her gaze wavering just the slightest bit. "Please. I must have it – I must fulfill the king's wish. I promise you that I won't use its powers for anything else."

"How can you make such a promise when your own powers aren't yours to command?"

The fortune teller looked at her with sadness in her eyes.

"I have no interest in knowing what Clemson is seeking now," she declared then, "All I know for sure is that he will not make me fight my own student. You may have bound yourself to him, started spinning that magic roulette for him, and now he considers himself superior to anyone around him. Which star shall be the next to fall? The lives of the animals on this island are like piles of jetons in his paws, and no matter what bet he places, he will win them all. Because he rules both the black and the red; the natural and the supernatural. But he forgot something… he forgot that roulette has a pocket that is neither black nor red. Every roulette has a special pocket called Zero. And this pocket allows me to bring the roulette of his to ruin even without having to fight you!"

Seven looked at her silently for a minute, trying to figure out what she meant. Masikura detached the pearl from the tip of her wand.

– "That Moon Pearl is the Zero on his roulette! Without it our fight will end neither in defeat nor in victory for any of us. In fact, it is over before it even began – because I'm taking away the reason that caused it!"

And Masikura pointed her wand at the pearl and began singing a low chant, mouthing ancient words of power. Blue light cascaded out of the tip of her wand and struck the pearl, making it glow. Energy swept across its shiny surface, brighter and brighter –

"No!" Seven screamed, _"No!"_

– And then the pearl exploded in a bright flash of light and was gone.

* * *

Meanwhile Julien, Maurice, and the penguins had used their chance to climb over the battlements unnoticed while Masikura kept the witch and her demon servants busy.

" _We're still trapped in the buttery_ ," Clover told them over the radio, " _Remember, it's the first room under the ground floor. Next to it are the wine cellars, and beneath them, the dungeons._ _Clemson's monsters were chasing us before, and I can hear there are still some of them outside in the staircase, probably looking for us; that's why we can't get out._ _So if you don't want to get caught, too, you better watch your step if you're coming down here_."

"Got it." Skipper turned off the radio and turned to his men. "You heard her, gentlemen; let's go. Stay close to each other, everyone; if we move fast enough and take them on together, we should be able to handle them."

They were deep inside the bowels of the castle now, moving forward with the utmost care not to attract the attention of Clemson's servants. The corridors they moved through were very dark and the lighting almost nonexistent, lending an otherworldly effect to the whole place. The stone walls around them stretched up and up, and even when they craned their necks, they couldn't see the ceiling. It was lost in dimness.

They found two giant torches placed at the sides of the throne room's entrance door; Maurice suggested taking them along for more light, but some of the hallways were lined with wood or even drapes, and it would've been easy to start a fire in them. In another room Private discovered a candlestick with enough candles for each of them. They didn't provide much light, but it was better than nothing. Finally they found the staircase leading to the lower levels which Clover had described them.

While the lemurs and his men had already begun descending the stairs, Skipper was still up on the landing when he saw a figure flit past the window at the end of the next corridor. He stopped in his tracks. For a tiny moment he saw flaming red fur glisten in the moonlight falling through the window…

He knew he'd just told everyone to stay together. But Clover was right – if they wanted to end the tyranny, the tyrant had to fall first. Maybe the chance would never come again.

Without thinking further he turned away from the staircase and belly-slid into the corridor instead, setting off to chase the red lemur.

* * *

Clemson was hiding, shivering and terrified, behind the locked door of his chamber.

Here they couldn't find him, couldn't hurt him. None of what happened outside could hurt him. He would just stay here until it was all over. He cursed himself for having left the crystal ball upstairs in the castle's library – now he had no way of knowing how things were developing outside. But he'd just wait here until Seven had won the fight for him.

She would defeat her ex-teacher. She would!

He tried to continue Timo's repair work as he waited, but whatever he did, it was never Mea but only his own anguished face he caught sight of in the gleaming surface of the mirror littered with cracks and fissures. "Come back to me...," he whispered, pressing his cheek to the wooden frame as he leaned against it.

But he would not. The mirror was broken. The last open door was locked.

And suddenly he was afraid to look at himself again; when working with the mirror he'd casually glanced at the reflected image of his body before, but all of a sudden the idea of accidentally looking himself in the eyes frightened him. He sucked in his lips and chewed on them. Then he glanced up abruptly and, working against himself, finally caught his own gaze. The vacant eyes looking back at him were ghostly.

For a long while he just stared at everything he'd become in such a short amount of time.

Everything he saw… fake and superficial. Pretending to be what he was not.

But why? What had become of his dream? A lie, everything – a flawed attempt at making himself appear better than he truly was. He was no king, no glorious ruler. He was a liar. Having to smile every day and fool everyone into thinking he was okay… he despised it.

 _Everything I pretend to be… I never was, and never will be!_

He had lied to all of them, kept lying, every single day.

A king of liars, an artist of subterfuge.

But most of all he'd been lying to himself. Over his lifetime he'd gotten quite good at it, so good he hardly even noticed it anymore. Lie after lie, until he'd started to believe that if only he sought power as an ultimate goal, he would be happy.

 _The mirror never lies,_ they said. Even though he could fool everybody else, he couldn't fool himself if he looked into it. So he kept gazing at himself to finally see the truth; his eyes began to well up, but there was no emotion behind them. It was as though he was staring into the gateway to his soul, seeing nothing. Just the vacant stare of an eyeball functioning on neural instructions. He tried to smile at himself but only managed some half-hearted, lopsided affair, and the effort strained at his lips almost painfully.

 _Ugly. Worthless_. No wonder he repulsed everybody. He repulsed himself.

And he couldn't escape himself, no matter which way he turned. The loathing he felt was so deep that it came from the very core of his being.

Seized by a sudden impulse, he lunged forward and slammed his paw into the mirror, shattering the part Timo had repaired earlier into a thousand different versions of himself.

"I know the truth now! I know who you are!" he screamed – staring at all those different representations of him stopped his breathing for a moment. _And I don't love you… I never have – not a bit, not a single bit!_

His paw fell away from the mirror; there were shards of glass embedded in his palm. The biggest one had sliced into the fleshy part between his thumb and index finger. He reeled back onto his knees, cradling his palm before he started to pull the splinters out. He winced at the pain, grimacing as the blood spurted out, but at the same time, having something to do made him feel strangely real again. He reached for his knife and used its pointed tip to remove the rest of the splinters before he picked them up and studied them. It occurred to him that he had to wash his paw and bandage it. He staggered to his feet and made his way to the door when he suddenly heard steps approaching along the corridor – heavy, powerful, the steps of an animal who was used to getting his way in the world. They stopped right outside the door.

Then someone knocked three times, lightly, yet he flinched at the sound.

"Guess who, Clemson," came a voice from outside the door – a voice he recalled only too clearly.

* * *

The explosion had torn the ground between the two witches into a giant crater. Parts of the hallway walls had caved in under the force of the spell, and the whole place now resembled a spacious open courtyard rather than an entrance hall. As they watched, the Harpies surrounding them shivered; had they retreated just three steps less, they would've already been turned to dust by now. Even Seven seemed startled for a moment by the force of her teacher's spell. Then she regained her composure and backed up.

"What have you done?!" she yelled at the older witch, "How dare you! How dare you do such a horrible thing!"

"I did what I should have done long ago," Masikura replied calmly, "This Moon Pearl was a magical artifact; I taught you several times that the magic the Sky Gods bestowed upon us must not be used to cause people trouble, which I am convinced you would have done. If this is what happens when magic is granted to animalhood, then we are better off without any magic at all. This is why the pearl had to go."

But Seven just shook her head at this; for a moment her ears drooped and her furious expression was replaced by one of genuine distress.

"Now King Clemson will make me suffer again. He'll send me through hell for this, and it's all your fault! – But I'm not going to disappoint him again!"

Her voice rose with accusation, and Masikura could see the same old anger flare up in her eyes again. She regretted very much that even though she didn't seem to be on good terms with the red lemur anymore, right now this anger made her stick by him all the more.

"– I'll make you pay for this, Teacher!" Seven lifted her wand and swirled it in a wide arc. "– _Come, arise, Giant War Towers!_ " she cried in a voice like the rushing of the wind across the dark sky.

In response to her summons, a terrific earth tremor shook the castle, and on either side of the open yard the castle's South and West Tower began to grow and grow until they seemed to stab into the heavens. They stretched over a hundred feet tall; each one had 360 floors, and there were at least two ports on each floor. Over 720 ports opened on each of the towers, and every single port was guarded by several Harpies readying their bows and aiming the arrows at Masikura.

"I can't wait to watch them turn you into a madly stabbed pincushion!" Seven cackled as she elegantly floated in the gap between the towers, looking down on her teacher, sneering with a look of absolute superiority hardly to be expected from such a youth. With the two massive towers lined up behind her shoulders, the witch looked very small, like a butterfly dancing between two large trees. – " _Blast away!_ "

The glowing red arrows that numbered a little over three thousand were all fired at once, drawing a beautiful geometric curtain of death into the night sky. Bowstrings sang out from every port; their twanging sound echoing through the night was probably even deeper than the sound of Larry swinging his deadly scythe. Blazing with the color of fresh blood, the arrows melted into one huge fireball of sizzling radiance.

Masikura stood motionless, quietening her mind as she awaited the oncoming assault.

Then, as the fireball was about to hit its target, she swept her wand down in front of her from over her left shoulder. _"Come, arise, spirit of Frank – bestow upon me a worthy shield!"_

A shimmering shield of condensed impassable air manifested in front of her, barely in time – and sent the fireball ricocheting away in a cloud of crimson sparks. It hit the castle's inner wall with a hiss like hot iron in cold water and then shattered into tiny fragments that drifted to the ground like cinders.

Masikura's ex-student couldn't hide her awe. "Not bad, Teacher! Looks like you had one hell of a move hidden up your sleeve. But don't think I'll give you another chance!"

The older witch shook her head slowly as she lowered her wand.

"Now we are done playing. This match is over, Yasu."

"Stop calling me by that name! This is not my name anymore. I am Seven, the witch of –."

"You're too immature to call yourself a witch," Masikura interrupted her, "You should relinquish this power which is beyond you and live a life more suitable for yourself."

Her attacker, who had kept dancing in the gap between the towers like a butterfly, slicing through the air like a flash of lightning, now lowered herself to the ground again.

"It was _you_ who once gave me the title of the witch, Ma – and I won't lose it! I will never give up my powers. If I have to, I'll tear this island apart in order to stay a witch!" Seven ground out through clenched teeth, hatred lacing her every word. The two sorceresses were fighting without their wands now; just by glaring at each other they caused bolts of magical energy to fly back and forth between them at great speed and with deadly accuracy. It looked like the air between the two of them exploded in fireworks.

A red ball of magical energy appeared in each of the lemur girl's paws. Masikura responded instantly with two of her own, though green in color. The younger witch sent hers speeding towards her teacher, and Masikura did the same to her. Red and green light flared momentarily and then faded to nothingness. Seven made two more attempts at the same tactic, but Masikura easily matched her in speed.

"Teaching you magic is one of the greatest regrets of my life," the older witch declared over the hissing and crackling of their spells, "Seeing all the hurt you caused others with the powers I gave you created a fracture in my heart that will always remain fragile and easily reopened."

"Don't say that, Ma. There's no need for you to suffer. Because what is magic? What does it mean to be a witch? Isn't this just the power to notice you can become so much more than a mere animal, the power to turn into something better, something greater?" Seven was smiling at her now, the energy beams of their spells reflecting in her eyes in glittering flashes, her high cheekbones under the black fur catching the light sinisterly.

– "Look at the two of us: we're just the same! You know what being a witch is about: once you get into it, you can't get out. Something forces you to keep going. The power, the excitement, the incredible feeling of bending even the laws of nature – all of that comes into play. It pulls you and pulls you. Admit it – you love the feeling of superiority as much as I do!"

But Masikura's steady gaze didn't waver even once.

"How disappointing… how little you truly understand of magic even after all those years. I've tried so often to tell you why the Sky Gods would allow magic to exist in this world –! All magic exists to bring happiness to the world of animals! We witches train so that we can give blessings to animalhood… And you, you see, you fail as a witch – you fail miserably! Painting a false truth over reality – that's what magic is to you! To turn you into the almighty heroine of your fantasy-laden interpretation which you fail to be in reality – that's what you've been using your powers for all along instead of giving them to the ill and wounded ones, like you promised to do when I started teaching you. I warned you, Yasu – I warned you not to forsake the law of the Sky Gods! But you would not listen – you would never listen!"

Seven's bold expression hadn't given an inch since they'd started talking, but now it twisted to one of fierce scorn. "Your turn is over, Teacher… your pitiful words have lost their meaning to me long ago! See how splendid your disciple has become – how far I've surpassed even you!" she cried out, a clear display of arrogance that probably ought to mask her insecurity as she tried to imitate her teacher's previous spell.

 _"Come, arise, spirit of Larry – bestow upon me a worthy spear!"_

At her words a massive crimson cloud began to grow in solitary grandeur in the dark sky above the castle, and inside this cloud a giant spear began forming, as tall as the branch of a baobab tree. It was a divinely beautiful spear, even too large for a crocodile to carry, a weapon of certain victory that even Masikura's shield would not be able to withstand.

Their last two spells had been very mighty – the spirits of the Sky Gods themselves needed to be invoked in order to perform them. Masikura had practiced this many times over the years she'd been involved with magic; her young student, however, had to concentrate all her forces into the spell in order to make it work. The towers she had summoned earlier were now completely out of her thoughts. Masikura raised her wand and directed it against them.

 _"Burst, useless towers!"_

A forked bolt of lightning shot out of her wand, aiming right for the towers with extreme precision. Seconds later, blinding light lit up the night sky as they were reduced to a fiery shower of rubble, bits and pieces of the wreckage thundering down upon the castle like magma being shot out of Larry's volcano. Swarms of Harpies flew up from the collapsing structure, shouting their protest.

The younger witch was so surprised by the attack that she lost control over her previous spell. The mighty spear she had conjured up exploded into flecks of gold that turned into several billion butterflies, wrapping the area in a gold-colored storm. Masikura expected her to shout a counter spell any second that would protect her from the falling boulders and chunks of tower – but Seven didn't. The older witch's gaze flew up to the moon – too late she realized what was happening: by now it was long after midnight, and Seven didn't have the power to perform another spell. The spear had been her last trump card – now she was as vulnerable again as any animal.

Bricks, wooden beams, and roofing tiles came down on the young witch mercilessly. There wasn't even time for her to scream. The rubble buried her instantly.

"Oh no," Masikura gasped, _"_ No…!" – Had she not interfered, there was no way Seven could have survived the shower of exploding debris. Masikura barely managed to redirect the falling rocks away from her with a strong gust of air she conjured before she dispersed them into harmless dust with another spell. Then she rushed up to the pile of rubble that had already fallen and tore away bricks and broken wood with her bare hands.

"Yasu! Yasu! Answer me!"

Half of the young witch's body had already disappeared under the rocks. When the rubble was removed from her, her limbs were white and twisted, like those of a scarecrow that had been chopped and mangled by plow blades. Her head weakly lolled from side to side as exposed arteries spurted dark blood. Thin red streams raggedly trickled from her nose down her cheeks. Her mouth, filled with a pinkish foam, was working hard to form the words when she choked out, "That was a nasty move, Ma."

"Shh… don't speak. I will –."

 _"Leave me alone!"_ Seven squeezed her eyes shut and weakly pushed Masikura's hands away when the chameleon lady tried to help her up.

– "I didn't want to believe it… but you really _do_ want to kill me!" she gasped, her voice breaking. "I never thought you'd go so far… _I_ wouldn't have dreamed of entering into a fight to the death with you! I was just messing around a bit, okay? Trying to prove my point… trying to make you listen. Just once, Ma, listen to me – and see things from another point of view than yours!" She stumbled to her feet, backing away from Masikura. Blood dripped from her arms in long rivulets as she reached out both paws against her. "– So it wasn't enough for you to watch me die once! It wasn't enough for you to have me banished for so many years! You still want more and more revenge on me because I've been unruly, because I haven't done things your way."

Masikura's mouth tautened into a grim line. "No! I never meant to kill you in any way! Please, I never meant for this to happen! I haven't thought about the fact that our duel could only last for a limited time –."

But the young witch was too caught up in her fury to even listen. "Die! Disappear!" she yelled at Masikura, her voice scathing, "I hate you, loathe you with my whole heart, my whole soul! I want to push out all the wedges you drove into my chest and fling them back at you – that's really all you deserve for being such a cunning liar!"

Masikura's face was still and stiff. If Seven's words had been blades, her whole body would probably be stained red with fresh blood by now… and these words hurt her worse than any real blade could have.

– "You taught me so much more than just magic. You taught me of honest things, things that were beautiful, things that made me smile, things I thought you gave me from the depths of your heart. But I learned to see the truth! The honest truth is, you hate me – hated me all along; I know that you did! – Since the moment we met, you've never really loved me even once!" Tears were streaming down her cheeks as Seven screamed these words at Masikura. Then she turned and stumbled away, limping and coughing blood, heading for the castle's rose garden.

Stunned and immobilized, Masikura remained behind. "No… this is not true…," she whispered, her own voice thick with sorrow and remorse.

Then she looked over to Faraday and the bunch of Harpies, who had watched their exchange of magic. They were still standing at a safe distance around the center of the battlefield, looking slightly embarrassed, as if they'd just overheard a conversation they weren't meant to hear. Then Faraday, with a slight tip of his head, signaled for Masikura to go after the young witch.

She did.

* * *

"Skipper." – A short laugh, sharp and snide, devoid of all humor. – "Now you regret having spared my life back in Hoboken, don't you."

The red lemur's voice was soft; there was a strange calmness to it. The two of them were separated by the oaken door, yet tension stretched between them like a piece of thin, taut, prickly barbed wire that held them together. One false move and they would both snap. Skipper knew he had to be careful with every word he said. "Open up, Clemson."

Each moment before the red lemur finally answered seemed endless, drawn out, excruciating. "No."

"I won't kill you." – He strained to keep his voice low, but it vibrated with barely controlled anger.

"I'm not a fool, Skipper."

A mirthless smirk twitched at the corners of the penguin leader's beak. "Yes, you are. Give it up, mad lemur. This is a fight you can't win!"

Clemson's laughter rang out, shrill and reedy, before dispersing into the black. "Look, I told you I was going to make myself the King of Madagascar eventually, and that's just what I did. I told you all along! Now this island is mine – so let me have my way with it. I have any right to do that."

Keeping his back to the corridor, Skipper braced both flippers against the door frame, choosing his next words carefully. "So you rule Madagascar with an iron fist. With the help of witchcraft you can easily destroy any enemy disloyal to your regime… but you don't even have to, because no one would even dare try to stand up against you. You've already got absolute superiority over anything and anyone on this island! Yet you keep murdering animals like you snap your fingers. And I want to know why _._ What more do you want – what in peeled potatoes are you trying to achieve?!"

He listened to the muffled sound of the lemur's footsteps as Clemson paced back and forth on the other side of the door, fraying Skipper's nerves, before he finally replied, "There's a spell… the Shadow Spell; it provides endless life and unites the living and the dead."

"Yes, I know. Masikura explained it to us before. But _why_ would you want this spell, want it to be performed so badly you're ready to slay half of Madagascar's citizens for it?!"

There was a short silence before Clemson replied, "Because if this spell succeeds, it'll make me the most powerful animal that has ever lived."

That answer left Skipper stunned for a moment. He couldn't believe what he'd heard.

"You've been crazy before, but now you've completely lost your mind!" he burst out incredulously, "Do you even realize what you're doing? Do you have the slightest idea how much hurt you've caused to your people, 'Your Majesty' _–_ just because of that… that _nonsense_?! – You know, when we first met back in New York, I took you for a decent villain, one who could even be admired to a certain point for his genius. Then you came back to play your dirty tricks on Julien, and I wondered how low you were prepared to go. And now you turned into a mass murderer – I have to say I've never met a lemur who lacks empathy the way you do, whose heart is so completely dead to remorse, to the sorrow and the suffering of others."

"Well then why don't you just take your lousy troop and go back to New York if this gets too much for you?!" Clemson's voice was deliberate, almost furious now, slicing each syllable with pregnant silence. Skipper's words didn't seem to affect him one bit. "Why are you even interfering here? This isn't your fight!"

"We'll be interfering as long as our ex-neighbors need us to!" the leader growled, "And you won't take any more lives of those poor lemurs – not on my watch! We're here to stop this senseless murdering, to stop the whole evil lot of you – that's _you_ , your witch, your monsters, and your… wait, where's your robot friend? I haven't seen him anywhere for as long as you've been here. Why haven't you sent him into battle against us yet?"

A deep silence followed his words. Skipper remembered the android had been pretty badly damaged after their last adventure in Hoboken.

"Well?" he asked. Still no answer. – "You lost him?" he guessed, and when there was still absolute silence on the other side of the door he added sarcastically, "Good job, Pygmalion. Well, that's one problem less to worry about when we –."

He stopped right in the middle of the sentence as Clemson's previous words resounded in his mind – _a spell that unites the living and the dead._

Suddenly the whole truth dawned upon him. "Wait a minute… you're not telling me you're putting all of Madagascar through this, just because –."

" _What else am I supposed to do?!_ " And suddenly Clemson was yelling, yelling so loudly it made Skipper flinch even though he was on the other side of the door, sucking up everything in a vortex of fury and outrage, his voice shrill with something frantic and hurt.

– "You, you always know everything!" he cried, "Why don't you tell me how to get rid of the witch and reverse what she's done?" He put so much effort into his voice that it cracked, the whole façade cracked, and then he broke down and wept. And Skipper stood in silence and listened to him crying, and for a moment he was so stunned he didn't know what to say.

"How is this my fault?! It was _you_ who started messing with the paranormal!" he replied then, part of his mind still recapitulating everything he'd just learned, "So this is it… This is what you're trying to do. You lost your mechanical friend, and you want to bring him back to life."

"The witch took him from me… she took his body… I should've never let it happen!"

He was crying so hard he could barely speak. Skipper was leaning against the door now, head lowered. "Well, why did you? What was he to you? You created yourself an alter ego, a stronger version of yourself who would shield you from the world by standing up for your mistakes. Now that he's gone, you have to see to that yourself again – and that's just what you can't seem to do, what you keep failing at."

Clemson had put his paws flat against the door from the other side; Skipper could hear his fingernails scratching at the wood… frantically trying to get out of the situation he was trapped in. "Help me, Skipper… help me!" he pleaded, heart-rending sobs breaking his words, "For the love of Frank, help me just one more time, and on my life or what's left of it, I'll swear – on Frank's blood I'll swear! – I'm not going to cause you trouble ever again. But there must be a way to make this undone… there must be! You've got to have a plan… _any_ plan, _any at all!_ Penguins always have a plan! Right?"

"Even if I had one, I wouldn't reveal it to you. Because why would I believe you now? You've had your chances, Clemson, and you've blown them all. My patience with you is over." Skipper was surprised at how cold his own voice sounded.

– "You see, everything was a game with you. You always had a plan within a plan within a plan leading into a trap. But you didn't plan _that_ , did you. Didn't it ever occur to you that you'd eventually come to a point where you can no longer run away – well, this is it! Your friend is dead. He won't ever come back to you."

"But he will! I swear he will – I swear I'm going to be reunited with him, come hell or high water!"

"No. No, you won't. Because you're never going to succeed with what you're planning… you can't!" Skipper put the tip of his flipper against the oak wood, his voice firm now. "Listen to me, Clemson. Listen, please – you might well be a lemur without a conscience or a heart, but you're hardly a lemur without a brain. You've got to understand! Going on with all this won't be of any use to you. There's no way to bring the dead back to life – there just isn't! Get to your senses, man! Even if you kill us all – he'll never come alive again."

"But – but the Shadow Spell… the last Moon Pearl –."

"It's _gone!_ Masikura destroyed it!"

"What…?" The tone of the red lemur's voice dropped a notch.

– "So now you see that this madness must come to an end! No matter how long you keep playing this game, you can't win. So stop your power play and give the crown back to Julien – give this island back to those it belongs to!" Clenching his flippers into fists, Skipper added furiously, "You are right, you know – there are few things in my life I regret as much as having saved you from that hospital fire. You are the most infuriating excuse for a lemur I have ever had the displeasure of meeting. You don't listen to a word anyone has to say; you act like everyone owes you something. You want to go your own way – go ahead. Just don't come crying to me if things don't work out! Deal with it when you realize that your great dream was a delusion, your hopes were lunacy, your perseverance pointless, and your friend's self-sacrifice nothing but foolish – when you realize that in fact your whole life has been a useless waste!"

He slammed his fist against the door frame, once, the sharp edge of the wood driving a jolt up his nerves. "So listen, Clemson, I give you one more chance – one final chance to give up the crown now and turn Madagascar's fate around for the better. The witch's powers are at your command, so call her back – tell her to leave us alone. Surrender now – or I swear you, Clemson, right here and with my bare flippers, _I will kill you_."

He spat these last words at him, clenching both fists and shaking them for emphasis even though he knew that Clemson couldn't see him.

He got no answer. Seconds ticked by.

Skipper jammed his shoulder against the door and pushed, pressing the wood until it snapped.

The room was empty. One of the windows giving onto the rose garden was open, the curtains swaying gently in the night breeze. Skipper hurried toward it and propped himself over the ledge, peering out.

Down below Clemson was running across the empty paths of the garden, fleeing from a world that was closing in on him.


	21. Chapter 20 - Moonless Night

CHAPTER 20

 **MOONLESS NIGHT**

"We found them, Skipper!" Private's voice ripped the penguin leader from his thoughts.

He turned away from the window; behind him his team came belly-sliding into the room, accompanied by the three lemurs and a young tenrec who had to be Timo. Skipper nodded at him and Clover briefly, relieved to see them alright.

"Why did you run off like that?!" Kowalski asked in an accusatory tone before he could greet them, "You know, you could say something before you go swim solo!"

"Sorry. I was just… I saw Clemson, and I went after him…"

Clover's eyebrows shot up. "Did you get him?!"

"Yeah. No. I talked to him… then he ran off." – He pointed towards the open window.

"Damn it." Clover beat her fist into her palm.

"Holy butterballs!" Skipper exclaimed when he then noticed Timo's bruised and beaten face, "What has that madman done to you?!"

"Oh, don't worry; I'm okay. At least the spell is gone and I'm myself again." The tenrec drew his swollen lips into a faint smile. "Hey, we haven't met before, have we? I'm Timo."

"Skipper." They shook paw and flipper briefly.

"Let's go, guys," Maurice urged, "We've got no time to lose. Both Masikura and the witch have stopped fighting and disappeared somewhere; now it's only a matter of time until Clemson's servants will notice we're around!"

The leader nodded sternly. "Right. Roll out, everyone."

They climbed out of the window, deciding to leave the castle the same way Clemson had left it. It was the safest way since most of his servants were still assembled in the entrance hall where Masikura and her former student had just dueled.

However, they weren't halfway across the rose garden yet when they heard a Harpy guard call out from somewhere behind them, "Hey, just a minute there!"

 _"Go!"_ Skipper shouted, and everyone doubled their pace.

Skipper risked a look back, and his eyes widened in horror: behind them the dark sky was swarming with Harpies, swirling shadowy creatures with eyes like glowing coals. They must have spotted them from the battlements or from one of the towers; after all, they had already managed to restore the two that had been destroyed during the magic duel. He felt their blazing eyes on his neck.

They had reached the jungle by now; in a whirl of broken twigs and flying leaves they were tearing through the undergrowth, weaving between tree trunks and springing over brambles and ferns. Skipper ducked when a wide black shadow swept down from above, passed him with a liquid whoosh, and disappeared into the next treetop.

"Watch out, everyone!" he yelled – the jungle was so dense here that he couldn't see very far in any direction. All he could make out was that Timo and his three brothers were already ahead of him. Suddenly a sound caught his ear – the rustle of something heavy moving through the treetops behind him.

"Maurice! Look out!" Clover shouted from somewhere.

Skipper stopped dead in his tracks and turned around; as he strained his eyes he could see the aye-aye's form in the shadows back on the way. An icy chill gripped him – two Harpies had just risen up from the treetop above Maurice and now began diving at him. He screamed and waved his arms at them frantically.

Julien was by his side in a second – together they tried to beat them off, but that only irritated them more. Then Skipper saw the first Harpy's claws lunge out at full stretch and catch Maurice by his shoulders. He violently tried to shake it off, but the flying lemur held tightly onto him. He cried out as its talons pierced his skin – and then, with one great downward stroke of its wings, the Harpy took off, seizing Maurice in its powerful claws and lifting him up in the air.

"Maurice! _No!_ " Clinging on to his friend's arm as the beast flew forward, Julien, too, was lifted several feet off the ground and dragged along until he slammed up against a big old branch. By the time he'd managed to get back to his feet, the Harpy had already carried Maurice up to great heights.

"Help!" they heard the aye-aye cry out, "Help me! Please!"

" _Maurice!_ " Julien reached up his arms as high as he could, but it was too late.

Skipper stumbled through the undergrowth toward him until his left foot slipped on a root, twisting his ankle. He cursed as he crashed face first into the mud, jagged bark scraping his flippers. He tried to get up again but tangled grass and weeds were clutching at his webbed feet, keeping him effectively from doing so. The others were coming back, gathering around them. Panting hard, out of breath from the run, they could do nothing but watch the flock of Harpies retreat… taking Maurice with them.

"You _monsters!_ " Clover yelled, throwing her fists in the air while the others were staring after the demons in silence, with dismay on their faces. "You devils! You unutterable, stinking, rotten fiends! To Larry with you and your magic! We'll get you yet!"

Julien threw himself against Skipper's chest and flung his arms around his waist as he burst into sobs. "They'll kill him, Skipper! Oh, Frank – they'll kill him!"

Skipper wrapped a consoling flipper around his quivering body. He felt numb, expect for the cold, wet feeling of the moss beneath his feathers and his heart pounding hard and fast in his chest.

"No, they won't! We'll save him, Ringtail," he murmured, struggling to get back to his feet. He gently took Julien by the paw, dragging him up, too, and then they all started to run again.

* * *

Blinded by tears, Clemson fled, the gravelly path crunching under his feet. The rose garden was empty. Above him the night sky opened, vast and still. There were no stars, and the moon that had been visible before had disappeared as well. Everything around him seemed ashen. The world seemed dead, the breeze bitter. _Smile at me, silver moon_ , he pleaded silently, _please, please, please smile… smile at me, so the redness that scorches this world vanishes._

Then, out of the corner of his eye, he suddenly saw a figure running towards him over the meadow to his right –

"Clemson! Clemson, wait! Where are you going?!"

Seven stumbled to a halt in front of him. The young witch was bleeding heavily, both her arms and face wet and sticky with blood. His eyes flickered over her briefly, but he didn't care about her injuries in the slightest. The sight of her sickened him; the whine of her voice sickened him. He looked down at her with smoldering ill-temper.

He had nothing to say.

She stared at him, her mouth agape, when he drew his knife.

"You – disappointed me – _again_ – you useless, useless witch…!" he cursed, his breath coming out in fierce gasps as he stabbed her just below the ribs, driving the blade up and in. It sank deep, didn't stop until the hilt thumped against her body. All she could do was utter a choked sound; the blade had pierced one of her lungs, robbing her of the ability to speak. She stared at him with wide eyes, her knees trembling. He stabbed her again. And again. Blood flowed over his paw and into the grass. Her knees buckled and then she fell to the ground with a sickening thud.

Blood washed over the swirl of colors on his mind. Sweet blood… too sugary, like honey poured over mangos. It smothered his consciousness as he turned away from her and started to run again, nearly inflamed to madness by his despair.

Slipping from the gravelly path, he left the garden and found a dirt trail that cut through a thicket of small trees and wound along the bank of a river crossing the jungle that surrounded the castle. When he reached a place by the river where trees shielded him from view, he sank into the inky darkness and sobbed. His cries were wild and raw, his few sobbed words incoherent. He wept as he'd never wept before.

When his emotions were spent, he knelt there, numb and exhausted, resting his head against the trunk of a palm tree. The world seemed to rotate around him. He was the eye of the storm, a dot in a hurricane. Then he turned to the sound of the rushing river and watched the water crash over the rocks.

He couldn't hold out any longer. Nor did he want to.

 _What do I care? What's life to me? I have suffered enough to be put out of my misery._

He bowed down, lifted a rock he was barely able to carry, and clutched it tightly against his chest. And suddenly everything felt strangely clear, sharpened almost; his steps had purpose for the first time in what felt like eternity. He'd been lost for so long. It felt good to have direction again.

His paws shook as he gripped the rock tighter and began walking into the river. It was as if he could already taste the promise of what was about to happen so soon. He wouldn't lose courage, not now, not when he was so close. There was no turning back now. His mind was made up.

He smiled when he felt the first waves wet his legs and tail. He walked in further and then the waves just kept coming, slamming into him, surrounding him, taking him under. He didn't fight them, didn't move a finger when they went over his face. He just shut his eyes in sweet anticipation as the icy water engulfed him and let them have their way with him, giving up, giving in to the sweet surrender of blackness that loomed on the very edge of his being.

 _Take me to the other side… to the heaven of Madagascar, to the endless island!_

Soon he would be gone, his soul lifted, lulled gently, and carried by the cool winds on a never-ending journey to eternity. Cold, dead, buried six feet under, and nothing but a memory. His entire body trembled like the most brittle of autumn leaves, beautiful and _blessedly, blessedly, blessedly,_ sinking. His heart roared like the rush of water in his ears; it was all he could hear and feel as the weight of the rock kept dragging him further down.

His lungs started aching, and he was happy for the pain because it brought bright bursts of light behind his eyes and yet it was oh so dark, and everything pressed and _burned_ – he fought his eyes closed against the feeling of death, waiting for the moment the water would crush the breath from his lungs. Spots of light were flashing before his eyes like fireflies – devastating moments of lucidity before the blur would return and this time would swallow him up and free him forever from the torment.

But no white-winged angel came to save him.

No black-clothed reaper came to take him away.

All of a sudden a strong paw grabbed him by the neck fur and pulled him back up toward the surface. That surprised him so much he dropped the rock. When he was pulled out of the water he gasped for breath, coughing as his lungs were taking in as much air as possible. His heart beating rapidly in his chest, he continued to gasp and wheeze as he forced his eyes open unwillingly. His head swam with shadow and light. He felt like years had passed. Slowly the blurred face hovering over him became clear.

"Faraday…!" he choked out.

"The very same, Milord." The old servant was carrying Clemson in his arms. He was not smiling. He was just staring down at Clemson with an unreadable expression.

 _Why don't you just let my poor soul rest in peace_ , Clemson wanted to yell at him, but before he knew it he was sobbing, the horror of the whole situation pouring from him in noiseless, wracking shudders.

He was so tired. So desperate. None of this was fair, and it was all happening to him.

He clung to the old servant, ashamed yet too desperate for comfort to let go. So he buried his face in the collar of Faraday's tuxedo, mortified as the hot tears he'd been suppressing began to course down his face. He hated letting someone like Faraday see him this way… He didn't want to cry in front of him, didn't want to show him the weakness that was eating at his heart like a disease. He didn't trust this lemur one bit.

And suddenly he knew why.

When he pulled himself slightly back so he could look up at Faraday – really look at him – he felt the rest of his sanity fray at the seams. The old lemur's appearance had changed so drastically Clemson almost didn't recognize him anymore. The river had washed away the ash brown color which he had obviously been using all along to dye his fur, leaving him with a shiny silver pelt and a gorgeous ringed tail that looked all too familiar.

Stifling a cry, Clemson twisted out of his hold and knocked his arms away before he stumbled back as if the other lemur had struck him. "Oh, dear Frank. You – you are –!"

The other lemur took a little bow. "If I may introduce myself properly this time… I am King Julien I, the first ruler of Madagascar."

Clemson swallowed a couple of times, not knowing what to say. "What on earth is that all about?" he finally gasped. He saw a flash of white as the old king grinned down at him.

"The tale of Seven the Golden Lemur… it is my very own," King Julien I explained calmly, "Back in the days I made the same mistake Yasu made; I became a ghost in just the same way that she did. As a young sorcerer I tried the very same thing… the Shadow Spell. And I, too, failed – and ended up as a ghost, just like her. But that was quite long ago, of course… about two thousand years, I estimate. _Count Faraday_ is merely the identity I assumed after my… failure, just like Yasu became Seven. I did this so the dynasty of the Julien kings would remain pure and full of heroes and not become stained by a king who lost his life due to his own hubris." – King Julien I heaved a little sigh. – "Of course I should have known better than to mess with the Sky Gods… but well, what can I say? The prospect of power was all too tempting, so I had to pay the price for it."

Clemson stared at the silver lemur in silence, trying to process all of this as they stood there across from each other, both dripping wet. Somehow it was all too much for him to bear; he felt like he was getting too much information too quickly. His temples throbbed, and he put his paw to his forehead, still not sure if he should believe what he had just heard.

"If you really were king once, then why do you play servant to someone like Seven now?!" he asked, frowning.

King Julien I gave a little shrug.

"Well, firstly because she is a more powerful magician than I am, despite her young age. So when she cast a spell on me to make me her servant, I decided I'd better just go along with it and rather not risk a duel. But I cannot deny that over the years I have also taken a liking to her. Milady passed away so early in life, much earlier than I did. She suffered very much from this, and it took so little to make her happy – I sang her songs and taught her to play the organ, and it would help her forget her anger about the Light World and about Lady Masikura's ban… That is, until you and your ally arrived, of course."

King Julien I proceeded to stroke the elegantly twisted curl of his moustache and chuckled a little at the sight of Clemson's incredulous face. "It may come as a surprise to you… but I have observed the two of you already a long time before you came to Madagascar. I've been watching you, Clemson, from the moment you found that grimoire in Morocco."

At these words something dangerous flared in the old king's golden eyes, and suddenly Clemson felt like shrinking under the intensity of his fearsome gaze.

"That grimoire belongs to Lady Masikura; you see, I, too, have been taught magic by one of her ancestors, who also served as mystic advisor to my court back then… My great failure was known only to the witch doctors, who thankfully kept it a secret from the rest of the lemur people. From her predecessor Masikura eventually learned about my failed spell, too, of course. She came to visit me here in my castle many times. We have made peace with each other already long ago; there was never any need for her to banish me from the Light World. But things changed when, to my great chagrin, Seven eventually repeated my mistake… When she began trying to trick animals into allying with her and giving their bodies to her, Masikura and I agreed that until Milady could see reason, she had to be denied access to the Light World. Masikura also decided to send the grimoire away from the island to ensure that no animal would ever try to free her again – and as a means of providing additional protection she put my watchful eye into the crystal attached to the grimoire's front cover."

Clemson immediately recalled the red eye that had stared at him from the crystal that night in the desert, and the same icy shiver ran through his veins again at the memory, only three times as strong.

– "Therefore, unknown to Seven, I knew all about your intentions to conquer Madagascar and enslave the lemur pack even before you came to my castle," King Julien I continued explaining, "And I couldn't let you take over my island like this, of course. However, knowing her pride and her thirst for power and revenge, I also guessed that Seven might very well agree to ally with you. So under these circumstances the only question for me was how to minimize the damage the two of you would do to my island as much as possible."

Clemson could see the cool calculation in the old king's eyes, in every feature of his thoughtful, unmoved face, and it made him recoil.

– "Unlike Seven I immediately realized that your comrade was no real lemur, so I hoped she'd choose him as a victim for the spell that would bind her to you… firstly because his loss would weaken you since, as I apparently estimated correctly, this lemur was a precious ally to you. And secondly it would prevent Seven from staying in the Light World permanently if the ritual wasn't properly executed… which, with an artificial being, was bound to happen."

Clemson swallowed hard as he realized what this meant.

"You… you knew in advance that Seven wouldn't succeed in carrying out the ritual…?" he asked slowly, drawing a shivering breath. – _And yet you let Mea die for it?!_

"Yes, of course. This ritual was created to join an animal's spirit with an animal's body, not with anything artificial. Seven hasn't failed to meet the spell's difficulty, as you so falsely accused her of doing – she performed it correctly, yet there was never a chance for her to succeed in the first place, simply because that spell wasn't meant to create a union like this. In other words, your alliance with her was doomed even before it started."

There was a joyless, sarcastic smile on the old lemur's face; only his lower lip twitched a little, the sign of a cracking mask. – "Though of course there was no guarantee that you would agree to offer her your only ally as a sacrifice… But it turned out I didn't have to worry about that: your selfishness ensured this just perfectly."

Clemson glared up at the other lemur in silence for a while, feeling short hairs prickling at the nape of his neck. His words were potent enough to leave him cowed and trembling, yet his eyes flamed with unconcealed rage when he retorted, "If this is really your story… _then why didn't you just let me die?!_ Why, in Frank's name, did you have to _save my life_ after all you've done to me?!"

King Julien I looked down at him. His cold, distant mask had shredded; in its place was a horrid scowl, a furious, burning glare. "Oh, you can be sure that if I'd had just any chance, I wouldn't have only let you die – I would have thrown you into that river myself already a long time ago!" The bitter revulsion against Clemson seemed to come from the very inmost recesses of the old king's soul; it was as though he showed him his true face for the first time. Even well-trained politesse obviously had its limits; now his every word was laced with the pent-up hatred he'd been harboring against Clemson since the day they'd met.

– "And that would have been gracious enough yet; you deserve a punishment at least three times worse for everything you've done to my poor people and all the other animals on this island! If only it were in my power, in any degree, I wouldn't hesitate to pry the crown out of your cold, dead paws and return it to my successor Julien XIII, the real king of this island – Frank knows I wouldn't! Just like I wouldn't hesitate to set Maurice free again in a second!"

"Maurice?" Clemson blinked his eyes in surprise. "What do you mean, set him free?"

"The Harpies caught him for you," King Julien I murmured, his rue about it undisguised now.

"They have…?"

– "Yes, and there is nothing I can do about it – just like there is no way for me to let you drown yourself," the old lemur finished angrily, "I am at Seven's command; Seven is at your command. I wish it were different, but this is the part in your alliance that binds me, too. This is why I had no chance but to save you, even though I would rather have done anything else." In a sepulchral, indignant tone he added, "That means, as long as the two of you are in league, I am and always will be… your obedient servant." He managed to force down his anger again in a matter of seconds; his expression shifted back into a perfect mask of polite aloofness. – "It was therefore my duty to save your life, _Your Majesty_."

With that, he turned away abruptly and began striding back toward the castle in high dudgeon.

Clemson remained behind, still stunned by everything he'd just learned. Slowly, ever so slowly, he felt the pain easing, his sorrow subsiding, his mind clearing. He didn't think about the river anymore. He didn't even think about King Julien I's story.

Suddenly there was just one fact that stuck out in his mind above everything else.

He'd lost the Moon Pearl. He felt he was about to lose Seven's support. His treacherous head servant had been working against him all along and would continue to do so.

 _But the Harpies got Maurice._

He still had an ace up his sleeve after all. He clenched his paws into fists, drawing a deep breath as he started to walk back to the castle.

If he couldn't bring Mea back to life, at least he would avenge him.

* * *

"Miss Seven will need to stay in my cave for a few days."

Dr. S had returned to the waiting room where Masikura sat looking haggard, shoulders hunched, green hands clasped between her knees. The old lady looked up with worry-filled eyes. "Will she… will she be alright?"

The cobra doctor readjusted his head mirror with the tip of his tail. "Oh, yes. Nurse Phantom and I are doing what we can. You can see her now, if you'd like to."

Masikura got up and followed him as he slithered ahead through the nooks and crannies of his cave. She was glad that Dr. S had agreed to take care of Seven right away when a few hours ago she'd brought the lemur girl to his cave after she had found her in the rose garden, unconscious and bathed in her own blood. Dr. S had been suspicious at first, but Masikura had insisted he cure her and promised that she would mean him no harm. He had relented eventually; since then Masikura had been sitting in the waiting room of his cave, worry gnawing on her as she waited for Dr. S to complete the surgery, silently cursing Clemson to death.

The snake doctor led her to the in-patient ward. Seven was alone in the room. She was lying in a bed near the far wall, covered by a big baobab leaf that was carefully folded at the top and tucked across her bandaged chest. Her eyes were closed, her face under the black fur very pale. Masikura waited until Dr. S was gone; then she bent down over the lemur girl and carefully drew the bandages off. She found the skin underneath crisscrossed with red welted marks; the stab wounds Clemson's knife had left were still crusty and raw-edged but had been carefully stitched closed. Masikura drew her wand and carefully touched its glowing tip to the inflamed flesh; she'd needed Dr. S for the main surgery, but now that this was done she would speed up the healing process a bit. A soft chant began to break from her lips –

" _Come, try to remember… remember the form you once had_."

The lemur girl stirred, her eyelids beginning to flutter as her teacher's healing power began to flow into her wounded body.

" _Come, open your eyes for me_ ," Masikura continued her chant, " _What form did you have?_ Let's sing together. Come, Yasu – repeat it with me. Let us sing a song together. Then it'll all be better soon. Let us end your pain as fast as possible."

Finally Seven's eyes fluttered open, and she looked back at the chameleon lady. Her lips twisted into a faint smile; there was a bit of dried blood on the left side of her chin.

"Ma…" Her mouth worked hard to form the words. "I wonder how long it's been since I last sang with you…"

"Come, together. _Come, try to remember. What form did you have?_ "

" _Come, try to remember…_ " Seven obediently repeated after her, " _What form did you have?_ "

When the two witches began to recite the same words, more and more sparks flew from Masikura's wand and spread through Seven's whole body until consciousness fully returned to her. The young witch's eyes were clear and focused on Masikura now, and a mirthless chuckle tumbled from her lips. "Hihihi… ha… haha, you got me, Teacher. You win. You were right; I'll never surpass you. How foolish of me to think I ever could. You're still the greatest witch of all times, Lady Masikura, and you always will be. That means we'll do things your way, as always. Always, your way."

She tried to turn her back on Masikura, but the monitoring wires attached to her body wouldn't let her. The older witch lowered her wand with a sigh.

"Well, what is it all worth? My intention was to make peace with you. And as far as I can see, nothing I did helped me to achieve this."

Seven stopped fighting with the wires and looked up at her teacher with a dark scowl.

"Okay, so I believe you when you say you didn't want to kill me." She struggled to sit up against the headboard of the bed. "But then tell me why you did this – why did you punish me like this? Why did you banish me all those terribly, terribly long years? With great power comes great responsibility, you told me a long time ago. What do you blame me for – in what way did I use my powers irresponsibly?"

Masikura grabbed hold of the tangled mess of monitoring wires crisscrossing the baobab leaf and lifted them over Seven's head to run across the other side of the bed, so that Seven could avoid leaning on them by accident.

"With my help you received these powers, and you turned from an animal into a very powerful witch," she said slowly, "This means that you suddenly had the opportunity to place yourself above the others around you, above the mere animals… and above many of your fellow students, too, who couldn't reach your level – an opportunity you'd just been waiting for, since you were on very bad terms with many animals around you at that time. Then you lost your life – but your heart would still remain in turmoil, and your anger just wouldn't vanish. So when Clemson came to you, you took your chance for vengeance right away and conquered the island for him. Those who you felt had done harm to you – you killed them at the first chance you got."

At her reply Seven frowned darkly and crossed her arms. "They deserved what came to them! An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth – I merely set things right and corrected injustice!" she hissed.

"Injustice?" Masikura raised her eyebrows at the lemur girl. "The provocation bore absolutely no proportion to the _death_ of these animals. If that's your way of correcting injustice, then it was ridiculously excessive – an act of deliberate cruelty, in fact. And if you think carefully about this even for just one moment, you know yourself that it is true."

Seven was stunned into silence for a moment. "Excessive?" she then retorted in a scathing tone, "You're not the one to judge my pain! Not _you_ of all animals!"

"Then let's not talk about the others! Let's talk about you. Having enormous powers at your command requires responsibility not only to others, but also to yourself. How do you justify murder to yourself?"

The young witch shrugged. "Better vigilante justice than no justice. I've been denied my rights, and I've taken them back – there's nothing wrong about that to me."

"Well, you can hardly _enforce_ your rights like this – not by turning into a terrorist who sentences others to death! Not without acknowledging that those around you have rights, too, which also must be enforced… the right to life, for example." Masikura's voice was sharp with accusation. "Besides, the animals you killed during your search for the pearl – Dorothy the Mongoose Lemur, the crocodiles' chancellor, and the rat woman – they didn't even know you! How could you blame them for something other animals did to you, years ago?"

Seven stared gloomily at the leaf covering her. "Are you saying that a general sense of justice can't be placed over the worth of a life?"

Masikura shook her head fiercely. "How can you talk about a _general sense of justice_ when it's _you_ – and you alone – who makes herself a judge, jury, and executioner over others! And the worth of a life can never be judged by an animal; it can be judged only by the Sky Gods." Masikura leaned forward a bit, looking squarely at her former student, her voice softening. "– I do, by no means, deny that what happened to you was wrong. But Yasu, look at you now: how much more on the right side of things are you? Your vigilante justice did no good whatsoever; it only cost other animals their lives – animals who were completely uninvolved in your case! – and ended up plunging all of Madagascar into disaster!"

Color rose in her cheeks as the young witch gazed back at the chameleon lady.

"I'm disappointed in you, Ma. You're not even really trying to explain something to me – you're just trying to make me feel guilty! You're looking for an excuse to cover up your cruelty toward me when you locked me away from this world, and you think that if you can just shift the blame onto me like this, you can win this argument."

Masikura threw up her arms in frustration. "You can think that if you like. It's your privilege. But what about your responsibility?"

"Well, in what way did _you_ handle your powers more responsibly when you used them to banish me?!" Seven shot back at her, "You blame me for taking advantage over others with magic – and yet you did just the same thing to me! If it is wrong to overly focus on the bad behavior of others and to make yourself their judge, then how do justify doing this to me after everything I had already been through? Your decision to banish me just shows how little substance there is behind your words, how little you really care for others… for me. You sicken me. You're despicable, so you are!"

Masikura felt her heart contract painfully at the scornful disgust lacing her words.

– "Why is it that you keep talking about how sorry you feel for them, but you never seem to feel a bit sorry for _me?_ " Seven's paws clenched on her knees, and her eyes misted as bitter memories rose up in her gaze. "When I first came to Madagascar, I was so alone. I didn't know anyone on this island. I didn't speak their language. I tried so hard to be like the other lemurs… but they never let me! They never gave me a chance! They made fun of me because of my accent, because I could never follow their jokes and conversations. I was never chosen, never celebrated like my classmates. I would never be homecoming queen, class president, nothing. And at the same time they hated me, envied me, because I had a talent for magic which they hadn't. They used to bump me and punch me and then put on those innocent faces when you came to class, Teacher. It was all so stupid in your magic school. It was as if I was there but not there at all."

Suddenly all her anger was gone, and there was only grief lacing her words as she spoke, a deep, tearing grief that seemed to flood her mind and heart; and in her eyes Masikura saw flickering memories of her childhood days, each one of them a painful reminder of the unfulfilled hopes and dreams that had kept weighing on her for years. Masikura understood that with this conversation she had ripped her old wounds open again and made her bleed. She remained silent for a while. Seeing her former student so desperate and upset about everything that had been done to her in her school saddened her beyond belief.

"I can understand your anger, Yasu, especially with what has happened to you earlier. But it still does not give you the right to kill," she finally said carefully and in a very sad tone of voice, "And if your mind weren't so clouded by hatred and bitterness, I'm convinced that you could see this, too. So please, open your eyes just once and look – look at what hatred has done to you! It tainted your heart, made you desperately wicked, deceitful above all animals. It has poured poison into the very fountain of your once beautiful being! Yasu, you're no longer the lemur I used to know – you were many things, but I could never imagine you turning into a _killer!_ "

Seven had become very pensive. For a good while she didn't say a word and Masikura wasn't sure if she was going to get an answer. When the young witch finally spoke again there was a strange waver in her voice.

"Maybe you're right… I – I really don't want to kill others in Clemson's name anymore. At first it felt like the right thing to do, but now that I've been back in this world for a while longer, I… I often dream about the animals from the village who I killed. Like Dorothy… I see her in my dreams, and she is talking to me and saying that I killed her for nothing and that Ted is crying for her every night, and then I wake up crying, too. And then I think that this is not what magic should be used for, and if Clemson makes me carry out such orders, I should really end things with him…" Seven's voice had faded to a whisper. "But you know what that would mean…!" She gazed up at her former teacher, and the look in those eyes spoke of hurt and loneliness, pleading with Masikura to understand.

– "I never had anyone, anyone but you, Ma. And you gave me magic. Knowing magic means everything to me. It was the only thing I had in my life that ever made me really happy. If keeping my magic means having to stay with Clemson, then so it shall be. Even though… even though it's just terrible, and I wish nothing more than to get away from him…!" Her voice broke and tears began to stream down her cheeks.

– "He's terrible! He's insane!" she sobbed, "He craves for magic in one minute and despises everything about it in the next. He slaps me and strangles me if I can't manage to fix things to his satisfaction. He touches me in ways I don't want. And now he even stabbed me with a knife… Tonight I could feel how much he hates me. Maybe he really wanted to kill me!"

Masikura's eyes widened in shock. She couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"Yasu, you have to get away from this lemur!"

"No… I can't lose my magic!" Her words thickened and ran together. "I don't want to give it all up just because of him!"

"Magic isn't _everything!_ Now listen to me." Masikura climbed on the bed and up on the lemur girl's drawn-up knees so she could look her in the eyes.

– "Yasu, you are wonderful just the way you are, with or without magic. The fact that an animal becomes a magician should never change his or her character. I'm incredibly sorry for what happened to you at my school and that you had to suffer the way you did, and there's nothing in my life I regret more than the fact that I had to banish you. But even after that – and all the time before! – I've always loved you from the depths of my heart, and I'm so sorry if I failed to show you this."

The old lady was crying now, too, softly, the tears running down her wrinkled cheeks.

Seven wrapped her arms around Masikura and pulled her close to his chest, stroking her neck frill. "I'm sorry, too, Ma… about what I said to you before," she murmured into her scales, her lips trembling so she could scarcely say the words. "It wasn't fair. I know that you cared for me and that you often deserved far more gratitude than I offered you. And you _were_ probably right about banishing me, too. I was so angry that night, at Karl, at everyone. If I'd had the power, I guess I would've been ready to destroy the world in order to make everyone pay for my misery!"

And then they both smiled and wiped at each other's tears.

"Ma, can we… can we just put that behind us?" the young witch asked, "You see, it's like I have a new life now. Clemson has done much harm to others and to me as well, but there's one advantage I gained from our alliance – I have a body again now. It's like I've been given a chance to live my life all over again, and maybe that could be a new start for me. What do you say?"

Masikura nodded, smiling warmly. "You will have to live with the memory of those you killed, Yasu. But at least you _will_ live again. But what about you and Clemson now?"

Seven moved the leaf aside and got out of bed. "I'll go back to him and tell him we can't go on like this. There must be a way to get him to listen to me!"

"Are you sure that you want to do this?" Masikura asked with a frown. "You just saw what he did to you when you tried to talk to him last time –!"

"Ah, he's probably sorry for it by now… It's been like that before, after I'd stayed out of his way for a while. Then he apologized again and begged me to forgive him…" She shrugged. "Of course it would be easier to kill him, but since I'm at his command, my own magic forbids me to act against him in any way or to even let anything happen to him – so as hopeless as it may be, it seems all I can do is try to reason with him instead. Now that he can't get his paws on the Moon Pearl anymore, he'll have to change his plans – and if I negotiate cleverly, perhaps I could at least try to bring his violent conflict with Julien to a peaceful end!"

Masikura pondered this for a while, remaining silent. She wasn't convinced it was the right thing to do; the thought of Seven going back to a madman who had almost killed her terrified her, yet she didn't see any alternative way of dealing with Clemson herself. The young witch's intentions certainly were the right ones, but Masikura wasn't sure if she could really handle the red lemur. Because the worst thing about Clemson wasn't his malice. It was his unpredictability.

"Be careful," she warned before they separated.

* * *

"Now what the hell are we going to do?!" Clover cursed when they arrived at the beach, breathless and tired. The sun had started to rise beyond the horizon by now, spreading vermilion fire across the sky and the sea.

"Yes, how are we going to save Momo?" Julien asked, "We have to come up with something fast – you know, before midnight strikes again!"

"Yeah. Too bad they won't be stupid enough to fall for my ruse a second time!" Clover muttered. Kowalski nodded his agreement.

"Besides, as soon as Clemson learns from his servants that we escaped, he'll put twice as many guards up."

"Where is he anyway?" Timo asked, "And what about the witch?"

– No one had an answer to that.

"Wherever they are, it didn't seem that they were still on good terms with each other," Clover said, "Well, maybe that's an advantage."

Private looked at her with surprise. "They're fighting?"

"Yes. Seven even helped Timo and me escape… and she voluntarily undid the spell she'd cast on Timo before." – The tenrec nodded, confirming her answer.

They were all looking at the penguin leader now, waiting for him to make a decision.

Skipper was pacing ruminatively up and down, leaving a circle of footprints in the sand.

"Wherever Clemson is, his servants sure are where they're supposed to be, and that's why I'm afraid that no matter what we do, it won't be too easy to get to Maurice," he finally said, "Now that he can't be sure anymore that the witch is still fully supporting him, Clemson will guard Maurice all the more carefully to have leverage against us. Magic or not, as long as he's holding him hostage, he knows he's got something to bargain with. – That means we mustn't give him a chance to bargain! We'll attack right away!"

He pointed his flipper toward the three aircrafts still parking where Clover and the three penguins had landed them after their first attack. – "Clover, you explored the castle before. Do you know where they could have taken Maurice?"

The Captain of the Ringtail Guard didn't have to think long. "Since he's their prisoner, he's most likely being held captive in the castle's dungeons."

"I thought so. And the dungeons are underground, right?"

"Yes. They're on the second floor underground, the lowest part of the castle."

"Good. That means he will be safe when we attack the castle from above… the same way civilians are safe in a bomb shelter during aerial attacks."

Kowalski nodded. "I see what you're getting at, Skipper. That way we can fire away at the enemy's fortress without fear of harming one of our own, even though he's trapped in there, too."

"Exactly."

"Fantastic! Let's take the castle down, and for real this time!" Clover clenched her paws into fists, her face aglow with enthusiasm. "Now that he's in dispute with the witch, the odds are good that out of sheer spite she'll never restore it for him at all. Then it'll be easy to catch him and finish him off!"

Rico growled approvingly, and Private nodded his agreement as well.

Only Julien crossed his arms in front of his chest, shaking his head decidedly.

"No. That plan is too risky. What if Maurice isn't in the dungeons – what if they keep him captive somewhere else inside the castle? Then we would risk harming him if we just start bombing it! We have to send at least one of us inside to make sure he's safe before we launch our attack."

Skipper raised his eyebrows. "Are you mad? If we get discovered by Clemson's servants, we'll be caught and eaten alive by those monsters in a second!"

"Or turned into mindless slaves," Timo murmured fearfully.

"Or into an ice statue," Clover added, "I'm sorry, Your Majesty, but we can't do that. But don't you worry; where else would he be? The castle has so many secret passages; they sure know that if they locked him up somewhere else, he could escape easily, whereas there is only one way to access the dungeons – the spiral staircase in the center of the building – which can be guarded easily. And Clemson is a clever strategist; he won't take any chances."

She put a calming paw on his shoulder, but Julien shrugged it off and cast his eyes downward, staring at the sandy ground with deep lines of worry over the bridge of his nose.

"Maybe, but he's also an unpredictable maniac. It's too risky."

"But look, it would be just as great a risk for anyone else of us to get harmed or even killed by going in there," Private reminded him, and then Julien seemed to be outvoted.

"Skipper, I have a careful, well thought out plan of attack," Kowalski announced, drawing the penguin leader's attention to his clipboard. "We're six animals with three aircrafts at our disposal, each of them suitable for two persons. That means we need to split up into three groups of two."

Skipper nodded. "Alright… What about Private's plane though?"

The rookie glanced over at Timo.

"It's almost fixed," the tenrec reported, "It still needs to be refueled, though. I'll get at it right away." And he scuttled away, obviously relieved that they hadn't counted him in for the attack.

The rest of the group assembled in front of the three planes, where Skipper arranged them into teams and left them with some last words of encouragement for the mission.

"Alright, Flight Team One: Ringtail and me in the _Maverick I_ ; Flight Team Two: Kowalski and Private in the _Maverick II_ ; Flight Team Three: Rico and Clover in the _Maverick III_. – Gentlemen, Clover, I won't be lying to you; since we're dealing with the supernatural, our mission is not going to be an easy one. But whatever may come – I ask you all to give your very best! Our friend's life is at stake and we are going up against a cunning foe, so I don't want any of you to hold back! Make sure you push your limits and go beyond what you think you are capable of!"

He watched contentedly as Clover and his men settled in their cockpits and adjusted their aviator goggles with wide smiles on their faces, battle-ready and bursting with motivation.

"All Flight Teams – deploy!" he yelled, just before the Plexiglas canopies closed and the engines began their rising howl to takeoff. "Let's get up there and overthrow that wannabe king!"


	22. Chapter 21 - Push It To The Limit

CHAPTER 21

 **PUSH IT TO THE LIMIT**

"Come on, Ringtail, move it!"

Skipper impatiently waved Julien to get inside the _Maverick I_. They were the last ones on the ground; the other two planes had already taken off. Finally Julien reluctantly climbed into the cockpit behind him, and Skipper lifted the Plexiglas canopy over their heads and fastened it tightly. Then he set the brakes and advanced the throttle. At full power, all instruments were in the green and rock steady. He released the brakes and snapped the throttle into afterburner. It kicked in with a solid, reassuring thump. The _Maverick I_ shot down the beach and left the ground so quickly that he scarcely had time to raise the landing gear before it started climbing.

"You can't do that. You just can't!" Julien muttered behind him.

Skipper glanced back over his shoulder while he kept piloting them up. "Look, I know we've had our differences before, but we really haven't got time to argue now! Just calm down and let me handle this operation, okay? Then everything's going to be alright."

Julien sat back with a dark frown on his face. For any other lemur's sake he would have considered listening to him. For any other lemur, but not for Maurice. He let his gaze wander around the cockpit. He needed to get out of here. If no one was ready to risk going inside the castle to make sure Maurice would be in a safe place before they launched the attack, he would have to do it on his own – because it had to be done at all costs.

Soon Clemson's castle lay under them, large and dark. They were coming in from a southeast angle, a little behind the other two planes.

Suddenly they heard Clover make a bandit call over the radio – and when they turned their heads simultaneously to look out the side window they saw a swarm of Harpies taking off from the battlements, coming up and right at them. There was no way any animal could have kept up with a plane flying at supersonic speed – but those creatures could. They were coming in fast, ready for what would soon turn into a vicious air battle.

"All hands – battle stations!" Skipper shouted into his radio.

A moment later they already faced the first Harpy – 3,000 feet dead center in front of them, coming in at several hundred knots. Red balls of light centered in the palms of the demon's paws, some kind of sparkling electricity that soon turned into a single tall flame – it shone brightly before shooting at them like a red comet. A scream rose in Julien's throat – for a moment he was sure they were going to get hit head-on. But Skipper jammed in full right aileron and rudder while smashing the stick forward – the _Maverick I_ snap-rolled left side up and then continued to streak skyward calmly with her nose pointed straight at the sun.

However, they had barely time to catch their breaths – another jagged bolt of red lightning came flying at them from behind. Skipper gunned the throttle to full, but it was too late – it hit them with a crack that shook the plane and sent both passengers tumbling to the floor. The blast had distorted the airflow to the right engine – with a loud _boomboomboomboom_ it flamed out. Skipper cursed loudly. With the full thrust on the left, the engine swung the _Maverick'_ s tail around in a yaw. Skipper slammed the stick hard left to correct.

Julien was still on the floor, trying to get up as the plane was going this way and that, but he couldn't; centrifugal force was pinning him down. Something slithered into his range of vision from under the seats – Skipper's handgun. Without thinking he grabbed it. Finally he managed to pull himself up on the passenger seat. Skipper kept yelling to his men over the plane-to-plane frequency, not paying attention to him.

 _Let's do this_ , he told himself, _for Maurice!_

The plane was spinning faster and faster, speed increasing as a spiral movement was taking them down. Outside the window Madagascar, the ocean, the horizon, a blue sky, suddenly the sun, Madagascar again passed through his line of sight – they were directly over the castle now. _Time to go._

After he'd climbed back into the passenger seat and strapped himself in, Julien knocked on the window to his right. "Look there, one's coming right at us!"

"What?!" – Julien used the moment the penguin leader needed to gaze out the window to reach down and pull the ejection handle on the side of his seat.

"Sorry, Skipper." – Ejection initiated. Julien's shoulder harness retracted, and there was a sudden blast of wind and deafening noise when the canopy hooks were cut and the Plexiglas cover over their heads began to slide back.

"Ringtail, no! What the hell are you doing?!"

Everything happened in a split second: Julien was slammed back into his seat as the ejection seat straps wound up, and then the rocket under his seat fired him up and out of the plane. Skipper's furious cry echoed in his head before the wind ripped every sound away and he tumbled over himself in jerks, arms wheeling through the air as he groped for the straps of his parachute but found he was still attached to the seat. Frantically he reached for the shackle and yanked it – the stretch of the parachute freed him, and the seat fell away. His body snapped like a whip when the parachute ballooned open over his head.

He drifted for only a moment and then hit the ground, hard – he'd landed right on the roof of Clemson's castle. Slippery gray roof tiles glistened with dew, and at first his fingers gripped and then slipped – he cursed silently to himself. On his second try, he held firmly; he carefully slid down from the spine of the roof and dropped onto an exterior balcony. Then he reached back for the release straps and somehow managed to free himself from the parachute. Before he entered the building he leaned over the balcony railing and shielded his eyes against the sun – he breathed with relief when he saw Skipper's plane coming straight out of the orange ball, canopy closed again, circling up high back in combat.

 _Sorry._

* * *

"You know why you're here, don't you, Maurice."

Someone was speaking to him in barely a whisper, but in his mind, the familiar voice blared as if screamed from a mountaintop. In a haze of misery, Maurice lay face down on the cold, hard ground of the dungeon he'd been taken to. Holding his breath, he moaned against the unyielding pain while he struggled to turn himself onto his back. Though his left eye remained swollen shut, his right eye flickered open.

Teetering on the rim of consciousness, he found himself staring right into Clemson's face.

The red lemur was smiling down at him.

"– But it won't just end here, oh no. The point of all this is to make Julien suffer – and that's what I'll do, by making _you_ suffer. And suffer you will, until you'll gladly welcome death with open arms, and you will beg me to finally let you die. Now that's what I call absolute vengeance! And Julien will keep losing the people he loves until there's no one left, and then nothing will save him from sharing their fate."

Maurice opened his mouth, but his voice had abandoned him. He could see the dark outline of the red lemur standing before him. Then someone appeared behind Clemson's back. With his head so heavy and laden with pain, Maurice couldn't make out who it was at first, but then their faces came into hazy focus as they bent over him… his demon servants.

Maurice gasped and began to tremble violently – the memory of the horrors they'd inflicted upon him before came back to him in a flash.

How they had punched him and kicked him before throwing him into the dungeon, cackling all the while as he had screamed in agony. How they had torn open his skin and ripped at his body with the red energy of their spells. How their claws had dug into his back and his guts, sending fiery pain shooting through him as wet, warm liquid drenched his fur until he had thankfully lost consciousness at last –

And now they were back to have some more fun with him.

Fear stabbed through him like a naked blade slicing his flesh. The Harpies stared down at him, their globular eyes squaring in on him as if he were a squirming, dissected biology experiment. Then their lips slowly parted into a grin, revealing an array of pointy, yellow-stained teeth beneath the fleshy curtain.

Just then a loud voice interrupted them – someone called for Clemson from outside the dungeon. "King Clemson! Come quickly, Your Majesty – the castle is under aerial attack!"

The red lemur's face darkened with a look of deep discontent. "Make sure he pays for this," he said to the Harpies with a scorching look at Maurice before he left.

Their ghastly mouths stretched into an even worse smile. Their paws began to glow red as small balls of destructive energy began forming in their palms again.

Maurice opened his mouth to shout, to beg, to reason, when a bolt of red lightning crashed against his temple, slamming his head into the stone wall on his left. Pain flayed him. It scraped his bones to the marrow, ripped him apart, from skin to soul.

Another strike – flames of red exploded before his eyes, reducing everything to a blur. The stones under him were awash with blood, the pain so intense and burning he thought his body would burst open and shed his guts onto the ground. He was falling, falling, and by the time his face hit the ground again he could no longer taste the tears or the blood in his mouth. Darkness had already greedily consumed everything.

* * *

Julien peeked through the window inside the room behind it, which seemed to be empty – he prayed that the witch had sent all her minions into combat by now. Then he leaned back and gave the window one heavy kick with the heel of his foot – the glass shattered, and he pushed it open and crawled through, cautiously and quickly. Broken glass crunched loudly under his feet, but no one came to check out the noise.

One quick look around the room confirmed he was alone. He tiptoed across to the door and flattened himself against it, listening hard, his heart booming in his chest like a kettledrum. Outside everything was silent. In the distance he heard Harpies cry out every now and then, but they were too far away from the room to hear him. Gently he turned the knob and stepped out into the corridor, leaving the door ajar so the slam wouldn't alert anyone. A long corridor stretched away from him, flanked on either side by tall torches bearing blue flames in the dishes at their tip. A little farther on, the corridor turned left at a ninety-degree angle and cut across the width of the building back towards the entrance hall where Masikura had battled her student before. Julien was running towards it.

Reaching the hall, he took a quick look back, catching sight of a Harpy who was just emerging from a room at the opposite end of the corridor behind him. Doubling his speed, he raced across the empty hall and then, recalling the way he and the penguins had taken before when they'd been looking for Clover and Timo, headed for the spiral staircase.

He started down the stairs, taking two at a time – praying that no one else would think about using them before he'd reached the lowest floor. At the bottom of the staircase he took a moment to catch his breath.

He'd made it – he'd reached the dungeons.

Wiping his forehead with the end of his ringed tail, he quickly peered in every direction. Not a soul seemed to be down here. A narrow hallway stretched ahead of him, so long perspective seemed skewed in it; there were cell doors on both sides, diminishing in size towards a vanishing point that retreated at his approach. Some doors were open, some closed. There seemed to be an infinite number of them; he'd never manage to check all the cells without being discovered by the enemy. Fear began pouring through him, burning like acid. _I'll never find him –!_

But then –

There was a faint sound coming from beyond one of these doors, the third one on the right… a soft, agonized moan. It pierced his heart like a dagger, darted like a flash of lightning into his soul. He skidded to a stop in front of the solid steel door. It was locked on the other side; all his efforts to move it were in vain. He pressed his ear against the cold steel.

"Maurice, are you in there?" he called softly.

There was no answer. Julien's breathing quickened as he listened for movement.

"Maurice?" he called again, more insistently now. No reply. A knot formed in his stomach, and his fists balled at his sides. His paws shaking hard, he gripped Skipper's handgun and flipped off the safety switch using his thumb. The gun was fully loaded and ready to fire at the slightest pull from his index finger. Steadying his grip on the handle with both paws, he took aim at the lock and squeezed the trigger.

* * *

Clemson sat slumped on his throne, his mind plagued with sinister thoughts, too world-weary to even sit upright or lift his paws out of his lap, when he heard someone enter through the front door.

Seven.

After all he'd done to her, he wouldn't even have expected her to return to him.

"King Clemson… we need to talk." Clutching her wand in her paws, the witch stepped ahead to face him with a stern, dark expression on her face. Then her gaze fell to King Julien I, who was preparing black tea in the back of the room as if nothing had happened.

"What happened to your fur, Faraday?!" she cried when she saw his silver pelt, "You're… you're not the lemur I used to know!"

He turned and looked at her, his ringed tail looping in a graceful arc around his ankles.

– "Wait, I know you. You're… you're King Julien I! I saw your picture before in the _Kings' Chronicles_!"

"That is quite correct." The old king gave her a weary smile. "You see, Milady, this is my actual fur color. I am… have been, in fact, the first ruler of this island. _Faraday_ is just my ghost name, like _Seven_ is yours."

"I see. Of course I noticed that you were dyeing your fur… but I always thought you did that out of vanity." Staring at the water running off his tuxedo and the footprints on the red carpet, she frowned and added, "Maybe you should use oil-based paints next time to help make your disguise waterproof. You both are dripping wet… What happened?"

Taking hot water from a kettle suspended over the hearth, King Julien I brewed the tea in a small pot and then poured it into three porcelain cups. "I had to save Milord from drowning in the river behind the rose garden," he explained as he carried them over to the table on a tray, and Clemson couldn't help but flinch at the old lemur's oh-so-casual tone when he added, "It appears he tried to put an end to his life."

Seven's eyes went wide, searching Clemson's face as if she'd never seen him before.

"What…?!"

Clemson lifted his head and looked at her fully now, and the faint light of the early dawn that fell in through the stained-glass windows caught his face. It fell into his eyes – it truly fell, was sucked deep into their blank darkness. His pupils were dilated to the outer rims of the corneas, making his eyes appear flat and dead. The outer edges of his lids twitched, and his jaw was grinding, little piles of muscle building up and shifting under his cheekbones.

"But I didn't!" he forced out, "He is lying. _He_ did this to me." He pointed at King Julien I, his paw shaking hard. "He pushed me into the river and tried to drown me." He looked at Seven again, his lips slowly twisting into a sneer. "That's why I want you to kill him. – Usually I would see to that myself, but of course I know that I can't kill a ghost the old-fashioned way… But you, you will know how to finally erase him."

The young witch stared at him, her soft yellow eyes like polished amber. Stunned eyes. Uncomprehending. "Why?" she breathed, as faintly as a sigh.

Clemson glared at her with raging fire in his eyes. "I just told you he tried to drown me!" he hissed at her through gritted teeth, "Besides, _he is from Julien's dynasty._ So _of course_ he needs to die!"

Seven slowly crossed her arms over her chest, her expression darkening with an unreadable emotion. "No, I mean… why are you lying?"

Clemson shot to his feet, facing her. Rage roared through him, hotter than any fire, coalescing into the words that poured out of his mouth. "Damn you. Damn you, feasting on my life like you do. You skygoddamn parasite!"

– Her eyes widening in sudden fright, Seven edged away from him and stumbled back against the wall. Immediately, he closed the gap between them and then slapped her hard across her face with the back of his paw.

"You will learn respect!" he snarled at her, "I am Clemson, the King of Madagascar. Who are you, puny witch, to defy my will?! Just obey me, as you know you must!"He slapped her again, and again, so hard he split her lip. Then he let her go and shoved her into the wall, left her gasping for air, stumbling and struggling to breathe.

"I can't obey you," she stammered, trying in vain to keep her voice from shaking as she rubbed her bloody mouth. "He's… he's my friend…!" A trickle of blood dribbled down to her chin from her lip. She blinked her eyes hard; tears carved thin shiny trails down her cheeks.

"Oh, really. What makes you think I give a damn?!" With a lunatic's grin spreading across his face and an irreverent laugh, he turned around to King Julien I. The old lemur was staring at them, his eyes filled with a look of deep terror, his cheeks turning pale gray.

"Stop it, Your Majesty – please stop!"

But Clemson wouldn't dream of it. All he felt was fury… deep, seething, fiery-hot fury. He reached for his crowbar hidden under his throne and faced the witch again, smacking it menacingly against his free paw. "I'm sick to death of you, Seven." He stared at her with murder in his eyes. "You're the thorn in my side that needs to go… after you're done with that traitor, I'll definitely erase you from this world!"

She met his glare with mutual feeling. "I've done nothing to you! You created this mess yourself." – But he just shook his head, his entire body ready to pounce if she even twitched.

"When I was in that river, I only had one thought. You… dead."

And then he struck like a snake, with blurring speed. He slammed the crowbar into her stomach; she keeled over, retching, dropping to the floor with a meaty splat. Red dots of fury swam before his eyes as he hit her again, the point of the crowbar chopping into her upturned face. The red haze intensified, until the entire room was awash in bloody red. He heard her screaming his name. And then King Julien I was between him and her, reaching out his paws against Clemson.

"Stop this! For the sake of all the Sky Gods – stop this at once!"

Clemson lifted the crowbar again to strike him down, too, but then he remembered that attacking him like this wouldn't be of any use. He blinked, the fire inside him burning out.

"Do what you have to do," King Julien I said to Seven, and Clemson had never heard him so upset before, not even back at the riverside when he'd revealed to him his true identity. "There's absolutely no chance for you to deny him this, so do not try to delay it by causing yourself unnecessary suffering!" The old lemur raised his paws in a gesture of defeat, acceptance, and capitulation. "It will be an honor to die by your paw, Golden Lemur."

Seven shook her head fiercely. "No," she gasped, "No, Faraday… I can't…!"

But their pact made it impossible for her to disobey the order – until she'd fulfilled the end of her bargain, Clemson was in charge. With vicious glee he watched Seven's eyes fly open in surprise when her wand began to glow against her will. And then a bolt of freezing white light streaked past King Julien I as he twisted aside intuitively. It slammed into the wall behind him, blowing hunks of stone in every direction and sending lines of dust crinkling across the debris. Clemson looked at the damage, then at Seven, his face a tight mask of rage.

"Go on!"

A second bolt of white energy shot from her wand, and King Julien I started dodging again, but this time he wasn't fast enough and it stabbed him in the shoulder. He gasped, his face contorted in pain.

 _"No! No!"_ Seven cried, but more bolts flew at King Julien I, until his form began to glow and burn in front of them. Cold white light blossomed in his eyes. His mouth widened and he tried to cry but no sound emerged. His chest heaved, and then white sparks spewed forth from his lips. The whole room was throbbing with the fire lancing from the old lemur's body. He stood, arms outstretched, crucified by the white light.

Seven was crying at the top of her lungs. Despite the most extreme of her efforts she was unable to break the bonds of her own magic. _"Please, make it stop!"_

Clemson did – using the mere thoughts of his mind as command.

The ball of light glowing at the tip of the witch's wand faded into a small gray cloud. King Julien I slumped to the floor between her and Clemson, motionless, his own wand falling uselessly to the floor and rolling away from him.

A long silence followed, only interrupted by Seven's soft sobs and the crack and snap of the settling foundations. Then Clemson's laughter rang out wild, shrill, and exultant; suddenly his wicked joy knew no bounds, and he laughed as terribly as Larry himself might laugh over his final conquest of the Heavens.

"That is really the biggest joke of them all… Look at you, both mightier beings than any animal. Yet you are at my control." Seven's face flamed with both humiliation and fury as she knelt at her servant's side. Clemson smirked at her. "You're going to kill him for me… and then you're going to let me kill you. You're just going to let it happen… because I order you to! Now that's the way I like it. Ha, ha, ha!" He walked over to the table, carelessly kicking the old lemur's sprawled legs away with the side of his foot as he came past him. "I guess I'll let him live for a while longer after all… He is a good servant. Makes the best tea."

– He picked up one of the cups and took a sip. Then he waved his free paw toward the door, where two Harpies were standing guard. "You. Get in here."

The two demons, who had been silently watching the whole scene unfold, came hesitatingly forward.

"Take him away," he ordered, waving his half-empty cup toward King Julien I, "Throw him in the dungeons. Make sure he doesn't escape or you'll share his fate!"

The mere thought seemed to scare them. "Y… yes, King Clemson. As you wish."

Obediently they seized the unconscious lemur, hoisting him up before they dragged him along the floor and out of the room. Clemson watched them leave, his eyes narrowed, a sneer twisting his lips. "Very good…" Then his blazing eyes flickered over to Seven again.

The young witch was still on the floor, leaning forward, her elbows locked, her head drooping between her hunched shoulders, her whole body shuddering with a futile effort to hold back the sobs. Disheveled black strands of fur were falling around her face like a curtain as tremors shook her frame. Finally, painfully, she gathered what remained of her strength. Digging her nails into the carpet, she seemed to be arising from the despair and into rage.

"You will – _never_ – make me do that – _ever again!_ " she yelled at Clemson, pure venom dripping from each word.

The red lemur just shrugged. "You know that you have no choice."

Smothering a gasp of outrage, she struggled to her feet, wiping the blood off her face.

"But I do!" she cried out, "I hate you, Clemson! I hate you with every fiber of my being. I despise you to the deepest core of who I am. And this is why I set you free – even though it costs me so much!"

Then, with a single swift and terrifying movement she rushed over to the hearth and, before Clemson could stop her, threw her wand into the open fire. Its tip melted into a glistening white orb – and then the wand exploded into a thousand pieces which whizzed around the room like shooting embers. A hollow wail came from Seven's lips as she pressed both paws against her chest – then suddenly, as if a great weight had been lifted from her heart, she rushed out of the room.

Clemson stayed behind alone.

Alone in the darkness.

* * *

 _Frank, you are my shepherd, I shall not want…_

Barely conscious, unable to even whisper the words, Maurice said a silent, wordless prayer to Frank which he thought would be his very last. His body was ravaged to its limits by their torture and so wracked by pain that death would come as a blessing to him.

But all of a sudden, far off in the distance, a voice called his name – and it wasn't the sweet, appealing, pleasant voice of darkness that had been calling to him over and over for the past hour. The chills returned, shaking him hard.

They were coming for him again. He couldn't take any more. He couldn't.

The door to his cell flew open – and then someone was by his side, caressing his face and sliding soothing paws across his bruised body, and he found himself enveloped in the familiar, secure warmth that was Julien.

"Maurice, Maurice!" The younger lemur was sobbing, pulling Maurice's limp body to his chest, clutching him tightly as if his own strength could restore his life. "What have they done to you?!"

"Julien…," Maurice murmured against the silver fur of the lemur king's chest. Warmth poured into him from the darkness around him. He ran a dry tongue over his lips and finally managed to make his voice work. "You fool. You shouldn't have come here… they could have killed you!"

"I know. I know, Momo. But I…" Julien's words trailed off, and he shook his head, despair plain upon his face. "The penguins think so, too. They don't want me to be here. They're about to attack the castle now… they want to take it down once and for all. But I couldn't let them do it… not before I'd made sure that you were safe! They said you were probably down here, and they were right – but we couldn't have known enough to be certain, could we." He stopped, tears choking him. – "I know it was insane! I know it was insane; it was a one in a million chance that I could make it down here. But there was also a chance that our attack would do you harm – and I couldn't allow this, no matter how slim that chance was, because… because in this night that we shared I vowed I would make certain that no one would harm you ever again."

He took a tremulous breath as he clasped the older lemur's paw between both of his.

"I should have told you all this when we were together, but there was so much else to say, and it never seemed the right moment… but if this is the end for both of us, I want you to know this. I love you, Maurice – more than anything or anyone in this whole wide world. You've always been my best friend, closer than a brother. But over the years I've grown convinced that there's no other lemur I'd rather be with. Now, you are my life, and I don't ever want anything to come between us! I can't tell you how grateful I am for everything you gave me last night… and all my life long until this day! You were always by my side, always. There were so many times you made sure that I was safe – now, for once, it was my turn."

Tears welled up in Maurice's eyes. Those words touched him to the core of his being.

"Oh, Julien… You've got me with you, forever. I will always love you, no matter how this ends," he breathed, just before he gently cupped Julien's face in his paws and drew him down to his mouth for a blistering kiss. The touch of Julien's lips flowed through him, battering back all the pain and making him tingle with warmth. When their lips parted, he put his paws on Julien's cheeks and looked at him, eyes filled with care and gratitude. "My lovely king… Now I know I must have done something right in a past life to deserve a lemur like you." He struggled to get to his feet even though every movement still caused him excruciating pain. "Frank bless your heart and your courage, Julien. Thanks to you, we now have a possibility of saving ourselves!" he said, nodding toward the open cell door.

The younger lemur gently took hold of his wrist, stopping him. "We can't leave yet… We have to stay down here to be safe until the penguins are done!"

Maurice swallowed hard, suddenly realizing what this meant.

"But Clemson's servants…!" he began – but maybe, he reflected then, if they were busy fighting the penguins, they wouldn't come back for him.

Just as the thought crossed his mind, a noise outside in the hallway made them flinch. There was a flurry of activity… a grunt… curses swapped. Someone was coming down the spiral staircase.

Maurice's eyes that had been shimmering with love a moment before were now filling with horror. "Oh, dear Frank…! Not again!" he murmured, his voice breaking.

Julien clutched his paw tightly. "They won't hurt you again… not as long as I'm alive! Come on."

Not knowing where they were headed, they ran full speed out of the cell and down the dark corridor with its dank, water-stained walls. It seemed endless, with nothing but locked dungeon doors frowning down on them from both sides. They kept running and running until they finally, desperately, hit the back end – a dead end.

Behind them the scuffling had stopped – then steps were racing toward them.

In seconds they were sandwiched between the wall and two demons.

"Hey, where are you going, cute lemur?" one of them said to Maurice, "We had so much fun with each other! You don't want to leave yet, do you? Your chest is so warm, and piercing it feels so good. Oh please, pleasure me some more with that warm blood of yours!"

Maurice stood frozen, adrenaline ripping through his veins. Agonizing streaks of pain shot through his tortured body with every breath he took, with every heartbeat.

Before he could catch a clear thought, Julien lifted the gun and squeezed the trigger, twice. Even though his paws were shaking, he managed to send two bullets right into their enemies' chests. Both demons fell sprawling to the stone floor before them. They weren't moving anymore. Julien stepped ahead and toe-poked their limp corpses. They liquefied into a slimy gray flesh pudding that oozed into the cracks in the stony ground.

"Yeesh!" he exclaimed at the sight.

Behind him, Maurice peered ahead through the gloom, breathing heavily. "There may be more of them coming down here… this place is a dead end, and your ammo won't last forever. Whatever happens, we can't stay here."

Julien nodded. "I don't know why, but it doesn't seem like the penguins have started attacking the castle yet… Either the Harpies' lines of defense are too strong for them to fly near enough, or they don't dare to because they don't know where I went and they don't want to risk firing until they know we're both safe. There's no way for them to know that I found you; maybe they think I'm still running around inside here looking for you. So let's hurry and try to find a way out – then we can reunite with them, and once we're all together again, we can finally go for a no-holds-barred attack against Clemson!"

Paw in paw, they ran all the way back to the spiral staircase and reached the corridor on the ground floor in seconds. They hurried straight for the door at the far end, all the while cautious not to be noticed by anyone. Maurice stumbled after Julien as fast as he could, every step sending a sharp jolt of pain through his beaten frame. He ignored it and kept running. Down a long hall, panting and gasping. Around a corner. Up another flight of stairs.

On the top landing they stopped to take a look out the window in order to determine their location within the castle by observing its surroundings. They could look down to the main entrance from where they were; the drawbridge was closed up again, rendering the castle impregnable. There was a big hustle and bustle down there; dozens upon dozens of Harpies were crowded in front of it.

There was no way they could get out of the castle through the main entrance.

Just as Maurice turned to Julien so they could decide what to do, there was a sudden high whistling sound –

 _Wheeee._

An arrow flew by, so close that the fletching almost slashed Maurice's cheek before thwacking into the window ledge beside him. He felt his blood freeze in his veins. When they turned around, they found a Harpy standing in the corridor behind them.

"That's the end of the line for you, lemurs." The demon lowered its bow with a sneer.

Julien clutched the gun, but just then a dozen more demons emerged from one of the doorways behind the one that had shot at Maurice. He would never manage to gun them all down. Julien dropped the gun to the floor; knowing they had lost, they raised their paws over their heads to indicate their surrender.

The Harpies approached and encircled them, cutting off any chance of escape for them – until someone shouted a harsh order from the other end of the corridor.

"Stand back, demons!"

Everyone's head turned toward the voice. Seven was coming toward them, waving for the Harpies to retreat. "Leave those two to me. I'll handle them myself. Go help King Clemson instead – those treacherous animals mustn't invade our castle under any circumstances!"

They shrugged and obeyed. "Yes, Golden Lemur."

The whole group fluttered off, leaving Julien and Maurice behind at the mercy of their ruler. Kneeling on the hallway floor, shivering and clinging to one another, the two of them looked up at the witch. "Seven…"

The lemur girl stood before them, suddenly looking very distraught for some reason.

"Don't worry; I'm with you now," she murmured hastily and a little breathlessly as soon as the demons were out of earshot, "I'm not a witch anymore. Because… because I don't want to be! I want to be a lemur… I want to live!"

Julien and Maurice exchanged a baffled glance. Was this a trick? They recalled Clover's earlier words; perhaps she was being honest after all. If she'd wanted to kill them, she could have easily done so by now. However, she seemed nervous, agitated even, her paws tightly clutching her black tail, her eyes darting back and forth as she surveyed the corridor.

Maurice pointed his finger in the direction the demons had left. "What about them?"

She shook her head ruefully. "I can't do anything against them now. I summoned them for Clemson; but now that I've given up my powers, I can't make them leave again. Alas, the spirits that I've cited myself now ignore my commands! Our only advantage is that they don't know about it yet… but Clemson is most surely going to tell them sooner or later, and then they'll hunt me down, too!"

"So you have really… lost your magical powers?" Maurice probed suspiciously.

"Yes! Please believe me – I'm as vulnerable against those demons now as any other animal. If I could, I would just get us out of here with a spell. But I can't. I destroyed my wand – now every kind of magic I've ever learned is lost to me for all times." She took a tentative step towards Julien, hanging her head low as though she were ashamed of herself.

– "Please, King Julien… I'm sorry for what I've done to your people and that I served a ruler other than you. I have been a wicked, foolish witch. I know that I don't deserve it and that even if I lived another hundred years I could never atone for what I've done." When she looked up at Julien again, there were tears shining in her eyes. "But please, I just – I just want to have a home again… someone to be with. I want to live like a normal lemur, like all the other lemurs on this island! Will you… will you accept me in the pack again?"

Julien glanced over to Maurice and then back to her, obviously ready to trust her but still struggling to grasp the altered circumstances. "Well… yeah. Okay. Sure."

A beaming smile lit Seven's face, and then she went up to him and hugged him heartily. "Thank you so much, King Julien. You're the only true King of Madagascar, and you always will be!"

Julien and Maurice looked each other over her head, smiling at her choice of words.

"But what about Clemson?" Maurice asked. Seven eyed him with something akin to fear, shifting her feet uneasily and glancing over her shoulder as if to make sure that the red lemur wasn't listening in on them in this very moment. "He's armed. And if he finds anyone of us, he won't hesitate to kill us," she murmured, "He won't let us get away… Now that he's under attack, he has the entire castle locked up tight, under full guard. There's no way we can escape through the main door."

"Yeah, we noticed that," Julien sighed, "But then what do we do? We've got to get out of here… The longer we stay in here, the greater the chances we get discovered after all!"

They stood in silence for a while, thinking.

"Let's go up to the highest tower of the castle," Maurice suggested then, "If the penguins are coming around in their planes, they will be able to see us most easily once we're up there. Everything else depends on their piloting skills of course, but after all we've seen them do, I believe they'll manage to somehow fetch us from there!"

The two other lemurs thought this was a good plan.

"The highest tower of this castle is the North Tower," Seven told them, "It's a bit taller than the other three because it has two additional floors on which weapons are stored. You two go ahead without me; I need to get downstairs to the dungeons first and free Faraday." – Julien and Maurice gave her a quizzical look. "– My friend. Clemson forced me to hurt him… that's when I decided I didn't want to be a witch any longer!" She clenched her fists, face set in an angry scowl at the memory. "Haven't you seen him when you were down in the dungeons?" she asked then.

Julien shook his head. "No, but we didn't have much time to look around. Clemson's servants almost got us; we had to get out of there as fast as possible."

She nodded. "I'll go down there again and look for him then. Let's meet up later."

"Okay." – Julien turned the gun around and handed it butt first to Seven, who took it with a look of surprise. – "Here, take this."

Maurice shot him a warning look, but he seemed to worry in vain; the way she handled it showed them she'd never held a gun before, much less fired one.

"But why, Your Majesty…?"

Julien frowned. "Well, in case you find your friend locked up down there, how do you want to get him out, now that _magic_ won't open every door for you anymore? And how do you think I managed to free Maurice? Use this to break the lock of his cell."

Understanding flashed within the yellow depths of her eyes. "Oh… I see. You're right. Thank you."

"We meet up at the top of the North Tower." – With that, they parted ways.

Julien and Maurice headed for the tower right away, following the directions they'd been given by Seven. Approaching from their current position was less than ideal; they practically had to walk through the entire building. The fastest way was through the throne room, which was in the very heart of the castle and also served as a walk-through passage room from the left wing of the building to the right one.  
However, since this was also the most important room, they feared it could be guarded by some of Clemson's servants. So when they arrived, they put their ears to the door first and listened for a while until they were absolutely sure there was no sound coming from inside. Then they opened the door very cautiously, just a crack, and peered through –  
They didn't see anyone.

Julien opened the door a little further, and they slid inside. Their feet whispering on the nap of the red carpet, they headed straight for the second exit on the opposite side of the room –

Suddenly the door behind them slammed shut.

They swung around – and stared right into Clemson's face. The red lemur stood behind them only mere feet away, his gun pointed in their direction, a fanatic gleam in his eye.

"Nice try, Julie."


	23. Chapter 22 - Mighty Wings

CHAPTER 22

 **MIGHTY WINGS**

Mort was hiding, shivering with heart-thumping terror.

Before invading Clemson's chambers, he'd checked the castle for possible hideouts, guessing he might need them later; he hadn't found any place that seemed safe enough to him until in the entrance hall he'd secretly watched a Harpy approach the fireplace. The fire within it had gone out; Mort had watched the demon scrabble at the base of the stone chimney breast that surrounded the fireplace until, with a grinding noise, the wall behind it opened up revealing a small, concealed room. The Harpy had snatched a cauldron from there and closed the room again. Mort had waited until it had disappeared and then scrambled toward the fireplace, run his paws along the wall until it gave in to the pressure, and now he was inside, squeezed in that tiny room between cauldrons, chalices, and shelves filled with jars full of magic ingredients. Hiding from Clemson.

The red lemur was here… He was out there somewhere in those dark corridors. Mort could feel it. And maybe Clemson could feel his presence, too…! He curled up tight, hugging his legs, fighting the fear that rose in his guts. He expected the red lemur to show up here any minute – expected to look right into the madly glinting eyes of the killer who wouldn't hesitate to finish him off for what he'd done.

By now Mort even regretted it himself – not for his own sake, but for Seven's. He'd destroyed Clemson's mirror because he'd understood that it was dear to him, and he'd wanted to punish him – punish him harshly, mercilessly for what he'd done to King Julien, to Seven, to his home! But now he had a dark feeling that it was her who would have to suffer the full brunt of Clemson's wrath. He wondered why he hadn't thought of it before.

Horror crept softly into his veins when he heard someone descend the stairs to the entrance hall. He put his trembling fingers against the secret door from inside and pushed it open a crack, too tiny a movement for anyone to notice him from outside but wide enough for him to see who had come. Through the dust and grime around him the little mouse lemur peered out with wide, frightened eyes –

It wasn't Clemson. It was Seven, rushing down the stairs as fast as she could… holding one of the penguins' guns in her paw. Mort struggled to his feet and pushed the door open fully. "Seven, wait!"

"Mort…!" She seemed surprised and relieved to see him. "What are you doing here?"

The little mouse lemur scrambled over to her. "Listen, the mirror… it was me. I'm sorry. Clemson, he… Has he hurt you, Seven; has he hurt you again?!"

She shook her head, but the purple bruises and deep red marks the crowbar had left in her facegave her away. "Never mind. I shouldn't have given him that mirror in the first place!" she said grimly, "Thank Frank now I'll never have to worry about this again!" At his surprised look, she added, "You know, we're no longer allied. I ended things with him once and for all."

He blinked. "But how? I thought the only way for you to sever your ties with him was to give up your powers!"

"Well, I did. I'm not a witch anymore."

"Oh."

"It all happened so fast, I didn't have time to think it through. Because now the Harpies are still here; I should've sent them away before I gave up all my magical abilities. But when Clemson made me hurt Faraday, I didn't think about that; all I could think about was how I could end all this as fast as possible. But I have summoned the Harpies for him earlier – the spell has been spoken, and so it is valid. Until it is undone by another magician, the demons will stay in this world, serving Clemson and doing whatever he wants them to do." Suddenly she shivered so hard she could barely get the words out. "And he… he wants to kill us, Mort. Believe me; he really does. He wants to see us all dead. Me and you and Julien and Maurice."

The little mouse lemur's eyes widened. "King Julien and Maurice are here?!"

"Yes. Maurice was caught by Clemson's servants after Ma and I dueled; didn't you know?"

Mort shook his head. "No, I didn't. I was hiding here the whole time… After I'd broken the mirror, I tried to find a way out of the castle, but everything was so huge and I felt so tiny and there were monsters everywhere… and all the time I was so afraid Clemson would find me and kill me. I knew he was looking for me… I couldn't let him get me!"

Trembling all over, he covered his face with the end of his bushy tail, and Seven patted his head consolingly until he looked up at her again. "King Julien came here and freed Maurice and then they escaped, but I couldn't go with them," she explained, "I need to save Faraday first. Julien and Maurice said he'd been taken to the dungeons –."

"Oh, yes!" Mort confirmed eagerly, "While I was hiding behind that fireplace a lot of people went in and out of the entrance hall, and even though they couldn't see me, I saw and heard everything that was said. So I saw your servant, too – somehow he looked different, though, I don't know why. A bit like King Julien… but his feet weren't the same, so of course I realized immediately that it wasn't him. He was with two Harpies who had him caught between them and were pushing and pulling him along, and they said they were going to throw him in the dungeons."

"Let's go down there!"

Together they ran down the stairs into the bowels of the castle. The walls of the spiral staircase were lined with lit torches. Seven plucked one of them out of its holder and continued walking with the gun in one paw and the torch in the other. At the bottom of the staircase a very long corridor stretched ahead of them. Every fifteen feet they passed a heavy steel door. Some of them were locked; some were not.

"Faraday! Faraday!" they softly called his name as they walked along, lighting their way with the torch. Mort kept his small fists clenched at his sides. The darkness around them seemed all alive with strange forms, and each sound caused a shiver of fear to tremble down his spine. Finally, from the second last dungeon, a faint and muffled voice drifted down the hallway –

"Over here, Milady…"

Mort and Seven exchanged relieved glances as they hurried towards the door.

"We're coming, Faraday! We're coming to save you!"

Seven started fumbling with the lock, trying to force it open somehow, and in her haste dropped the gun. It clattered to the floor, sending a sharp cacophony of noise down the empty corridor. " _Frank_ ," she cursed. Mort scooped the gun off the floor and handed it back to her. She gave him the torch so she could hold it with both paws; then she pointed it at the lock, but it wouldn't go off. Mort held the torch close in front of it to shed some light.

"Watch out, I think the safety catch is still on."

"How does it work?"

"There's a little lever on the side…"

She clicked it down and a second later a shot echoed through the corridor so loudly they both flinched. The steel door swung open on protesting, sticky hinges, and they hurried into the cell. A cloaked figure lay on the floor, slumped to one side… King Julien I.

Mort and Seven dropped to their knees beside him, and Seven gripped the old king's shoulder. "Faraday… Faraday, talk to me!"

He barely moved; finally a gloved paw reached up to cover hers with shaking fingers. His yellow eyes fluttered open, hazy and unfocused, filled with pain.

"You aimed well, Milady. I hardly felt anything."

"Oh Faraday, I'm so sorry…!" Seven clapped her paws over her mouth, an anguished sob escaping her lips. "And I can't even do anything for you now…!"

Mort stroked her shoulder consolingly, soothing her. "But why not?"

"Well, how do you heal a ghost? A ghost has no body – they can be harmed or healed with magic alone. – And magic is no longer mine to command, since I broke up with Clemson!"

"It is alright. I will be alright. Time heals all wounds eventually… also those of a ghost." The old king's voice was surprisingly steady. "You made the right choice by cutting yourself off from him; that is the most important thing."

Seven wasn't convinced. "After all the evil I inflicted upon others, I could have really come up with _one last good spell!_ " She clenched her paws into fists, bitterly furious at herself. "I should have thought about this before I relinquished my powers. Just like I should have thought about getting rid of the Harpies beforehand…!"

With great effort King Julien I rose from the cold floor and dragged himself up onto the cot chained to the wall next to him. "Do not worry, Milady. I will make sure they never harm you or your friends again."

Mort and Seven glanced at each other with surprise. "How do you want to do that?"

King Julien I remained silent for a moment. "I need to leave you," he calmly explained then, "You see, your friends are coming to attack Clemson, and my castle will soon be destroyed… You both know that I once built it as a point of connection between the Light World and the Shadow World. But soon these worlds will be separated again, like they should be."

Mort and Seven looked at him with wide eyes, nodding slowly. "But what about you?"

"Now that I'm free, I'll retrieve my wand and undo your last spell, Milady – I'll send Clemson's demon servants back into their realm, and I will go with them. I will continue being a ghost for all eternity; neither they nor I shall ever appear in the Light World again. – Both of you have seen what happens when animals are given the chance to interact with the supernatural. And there are more animals like Clemson… The Sky Gods were right – it is not meant to be."

The two younger lemurs looked very shocked and stood with their mouths slightly open. His words rendered them speechless.

"I have no regrets," the old lemur king added with a weary but honest smile, "You see, I did not die young like you, Milady. I have been a ghost for so long now; I have even almost completely forgotten what it feels like to be alive. But one thing I will always remember when thinking back on those past times – despite that failure of mine I had enough time to live a fulfilling life… I never had the feeling that I missed anything. I never craved for another body that would give me back my life after I had lost it. But it was not the same with you… it was never the same with you, and this is fully understandable."

He took Seven gently by the shoulders. "You lost your life as a young girl, with so many regrets, so many things you still wanted to do… with all your dreams that had yet to be fulfilled and now would never come true. And when Clemson appeared and you came in contact with the Light World again, those old regrets returned to you more strongly than ever. Now that you're no longer with him, there is one thing you have to realize: you may have lost your powers, yet you will forever be able to keep the body he bestowed upon you. That means you've been given a chance only very few animals in this world have ever been given: the chance to live your life all over again. Take this chance, Yasu – don't let it go to waste."

Seven remained silent for the longest moment. "You're right," she said then, almost solemnly, "I've been given a new life, and this life I don't want to live with any regrets, in discontentment, or in such a selfish manner like I did before, neglecting the things that truly matter – because what is it we're living for? …It's love, right? Love, for the Sky Gods… for other animals." Her gaze flicked over to Mort, who gave her a beaming smile. "So I… I know that I've done much evil. But I'll do my best to save what can still be saved, and with all my heart I sincerely hope there's a chance that the Sky Gods and the citizens of Madagascar will forgive me and that eventually I'll do better in this life than in my last one."

"Now that you're no longer with Clemson, you definitely will," said King Julien I.

She smiled sadly. "Thank you. But… I'm not so sure about the other lemurs…"

"Of course they'll forgive you!" Mort interfered eagerly, "Just think about Franksgiving… they were ready to accept you there. Of course they were – after all, they were even ready to accept Mary Ann in the pack!" – She gave him a quizzical look. – "…A _fossa!_ A predator who has killed and eaten many of their relatives!" Mort smiled when he saw hope blossom on his friend's face.

"Then… maybe there's a chance for me, too."

King Julien I smiled warmly and wrapped Seven in a fatherly hug. "I believe so, too. Goodbye, Yasu."

"Goodbye, Faraday… King Julien I. I'll never forget how much you've done for me. I'm sorry for having been such a terrible brat sometimes; I really am. Thank you for all the spells you fixed for me, for all the times you made me tea, for the organ lessons and everything else. Thank you for helping me see what really matters."

"Deep down you've always seen the way things really are, Yasu." He pushed a strand of black fur away from her face. "You were just a little shortsighted when dealing with yourself. But that's all over now."

Tears were filling her eyes as she finally let him go, truly understanding it was for the best.

"I'll never forget you."

"Neither will I. Go now, quickly, you two! Clemson's servants must not find you."

– Just as he said these words, they heard the hard flaps of wings echoing across the hall on the floor above, accompanied by furious voices. Mort felt his neck hair rise. They grabbed the gun and the torch and, with one last look back at King Julien I, they headed out, silently making their way back past the other cells. They fiercely hoped that the Harpies wouldn't think about coming down here – they were in a dead-end corridor on the lowest floor and the spiral staircase was the only way out of here, so if they did, they would be trapped.

But it turned out they didn't have to worry about this – they heard a lot of hasty steps on the floors above, but for some reason the demons all headed towards the throne room together.

"Hurry up!" someone called, "The king demands to see us at once!"

Mort and Seven watched this for a while through the keyhole of the door at the top of the spiral staircase. "Now Clemson is going to tell them that I'm a traitor, and then there's no way I'll ever get them to listen to me again!" Seven murmured, "But hey, if they're all in the throne room, that means the main door must be unguarded now, right? So we can just get out through there. Come on!"

"But what about Julien and Maurice? We have to help them!" the little mouse lemur whispered frantically, "They'll be waiting for us at the top of the tower…"

"But we're only two lemurs, Mort. We can't do anything against the whole mob of them. The North Tower is on the other side of the building, and we can't be sure if _all_ of them are really with Clemson now, can we – some of them may have stayed behind to guard other parts of the castle. So for now let's just try to get out of here alive and then reunite with the penguins, and then we can help them save Julien and Maurice."

Mort considered this in ruminative silence for a moment. Then he nodded. "Okay!"

Grasping each other's paws, they hurried into the entrance hall, which they found empty. Carefully, silently they pushed the giant wing doors open. Together they lowered the drawbridge – the loud noise made by the rattling chains and groaning wood cut through the silence. The bridge slammed into place on their side of the moat like thunder, raising a cloud of dust. Mort staggered backwards a little, startled by the crash of the bridge as it fell into place.

There was no way this noise could have gone unnoticed.

They scrambled outside and towards the jungle as fast as their feet would carry them.

"Wait, where do we go?" Mort shouted as they were running side by side, thrashing through the undergrowth at full speed, and they decided to stop for a moment to think things through. His heart thundering in his ears, Mort bent over to catch his breath before he turned and gazed back the way they'd come.

Above the castle behind them he spotted three planes cruising at insane speeds. Their flashing red and green navigation lights were winking against a pinkish-gray sky. They were obviously right in the middle of a tough air battle: Harpies were surrounding them, sweeping over them, easily matching the speed of the aircrafts.

"Look, there are the penguins," he said to Seven, "So they're already on their way to help Julien and Maurice."

"Yes, but they can't possibly know that King Julien and Maurice are waiting at the top of the tower now, so maybe they won't actually go near enough to see them," Seven replied, "Someone's got to tell them that they need to pick them up!"

Mort nodded. "Yes. Let's ask Timo – maybe he'll know how to contact them."

They made a beeline through the jungle toward the Cove of Wonders, luckily undisturbed by any Harpies; apparently the demons were too busy protecting the castle to think about chasing them. They arrived at the Cove unscathed.

They found Timo busy working as always, fixing an amplifier Horst had accidentally spilled his beverage on during Franksgiving Ball.

"Hey, Timo!"

The young tenrec looked up when he heard them approach –

"Holy Frank, not you again!" When he saw Seven, he dropped his wrench with a scared look on his face and ran to hide in his dive bell.

"Don't worry, she's with us now," Mort explained, softly knocking against the metal shell from outside.

"She's just saying that so she can put some scary spell on me again," came Timo's muffled answer from the inside of the dive bell; his voice sounded far away, like he was speaking through a tin can attached to a string.

"Don't be silly. You've got nothing to fear! Come out of there." – Finally the tenrec's face showed up again behind the porthole, which he opened hesitatingly.

"I'm sorry, Timo. I won't hurt you again, I promise," Seven said to him.

Timo's gaze flicked between her and Mort for a moment and he chuckled bewilderedly, as if he didn't quite believe her. "Yeah, okay. Then… what do you want?"

"We need your help," Mort explained, "We have to talk to the penguins as soon as possible. They're at the castle right now. Can we contact them somehow from here?"

Timo pensively scratched the black patch of fur on the back of his neck just below his spikes. "Not from this distance, no."

"That means…?"

"That means you could radio them, but to do that you'd have to go up there."

Mort and Seven exchanged a glance. "Could we?"

"Well, technically, yes." – Timo pointed at Private's plane that was still parked where he and Kowalski had been fixing it earlier. – "She's fully tanked and ready now, and the plane-to-plane frequency is already properly configured, so we don't have to waste any time on that. The Plexiglas canopy isn't fixed yet though, sorry… That means you can't go as high as them, but you should be able to gain enough altitude for their planes to receive your signal." He stopped as if he suddenly remembered something and looked at them. "Wait, do you guys even know how to fly a plane?"

Mort shook his head. "Uh-uh."

"No. Are you serious? Of course not!" Seven frowned. "Why don't you do it?"

"Me?! I'm not risking my neck up there in a battle against some… _things_ that aren't even meant to exist in this world!" He shrugged at their accusatory stares. "I may be a coward, but I'm not suicidal, you know."

"Then show us how to do it," Mort insisted, "King Julien needs our help!"

Timo looked at them as if they'd lost their minds. Then he relented with a sigh. "Alright… but you do this at your own risk."

Seven nodded at him with a determined smile. "Great. Come on, Mort!"

The little mouse lemur's face broke into a broad, brimming smile. "Yay, we're going to fly!"

Timo then gave them a ten-minute rundown on aircraft types, flight operations, and basic handling before they climbed into the little perch between the two wings of the _Maverick IV_.

There weren't any rudder bars for the feet, only a brake pedal. They decided that Seven should be the pilot since Mort was too small to reach the pedal when he buckled his seatbelt properly, so he slid over to the co-pilot's seat and Seven took her place behind the steering wheel and levers.

"Are you guys sure you want to do this?" Timo asked them one final time, "You know the risk you're taking - so far neither of you has had any experience with flying at all, let alone with aerial combat. And remember, once you're up there I can't talk you through it anymore."

Seven sat rubbing her toes together nervously; Mort could see in her eyes that deep down she was still feeling guilty for everything that had happened to Madagascar and its citizens and wanted to rectify her mistakes by taking action now.

"Yes, I'm absolutely sure!" – She glanced over at him, and he nodded, too.

Then they put on the aviator goggles Timo had given them, and Seven started the engines, just like he'd explained it to them before. The transmission chains began moving and the propeller started turning. The plane shook with the vibrations, and Mort giggled with excitement.

"Flaps down," Timo instructed from outside.

Seven fumbled around for the lever between them and pulled it into intermediate position.

"Throttle all the way in, now, and steer straight ahead."

Gripping the wheel like a life preserver, she did as she was told. They began rolling ahead and kept going until they idled around the last corner of the Cove, Timo running after them while he still could. Then Seven pointed the nose for the beach, which Timo had said would be their runway. Not steep enough. Too steep. Wobbling to the left. To the right. In this angle they would head right into the ocean. Seven cursed, fighting with the controls, her eyes glued to the spot where the _Maverick IV_ 's nose bisected the runway.

"You know, the trouble with learning about magic is that at some point you just stop thinking for yourself," she said to Mort, "And deep down I've always known that this isn't necessarily advantageous – as much fun as it was to be a witch, I sure can't deny that. For years and years I've always had magic do everything for me – now it's time to do something _myself_ again!"

"Back on the wheel now, easy," they heard Timo yell behind them. Very gingerly she pulled it towards her, and they jerked forward. They rolled across the beach faster and faster, bouncing and racing as the ocean line sped by.

Mort twirled in his seat and called out: "Wheeee!"

And then, almost like magic, everything was suddenly smooth and soft – the engine noise seemed farther away. Mort could only see sky ahead of him as they left the ground below. He was flying, flying with Seven. It felt so great. Mort threw his fists into the air, whooping and shouting with youthful exuberance. He had never experienced anything like this before, and his excitement knew no bounds.

"We're flying!" he shouted again and again when they were soaring above the lemur village, circling the baobab tree. "We're really flying!"

"Incredible, isn't it," Seven said with a radiant smile and a laugh when he looked at her again, "We made it, Mort – and what a feeling it is! I've never done anything like this before, and I never would have guessed that flying would be like that. Who would want to stay on the ground when you could be flying like this, really, higher than anyone has ever gone, faster than any bird has ever flown!" Her cheeks were bright with color, her eyes sparkled, and she smiled with vivacious joy. Mort had never seen her look so alive, so vivid and animated before, and he couldn't help but smile himself when she tore off her goggles and threw a paw into the air as she cried out, "I want to ride the winds with you, mechanical dove – take me on your mighty wings across the sky!"

And secretly Mort hoped the _Maverick IV_ would actually hear her and carry them safely all the way. Since he was so small he couldn't see out of the plane very well; looking straight ahead, he mainly saw the speedometer and gauges in the instrument panel. Above the panel was a glass windshield approximately six inches tall, which Timo had attached there as a temporary replacement for the broken Plexiglas canopy; and above the windshield was the clear early morning sky.

Mort couldn't see the horizon at all, unless he craned his head up into the 100mph wind. This was quite disconcerting because the horizon was usually a flier's primary visual reference. So he loosened his seatbelt and leaned out of the open cockpit to feel the rush of air and gauge how fast they were going, but he couldn't tell. He was able to see better now; the Cove of Wonders was far in the distance below them, and the single trees of the jungle were no longer recognizable as they'd melted into a mass of dark green. The huts in their tops looked like little toy houses. It was amazing just how small everything looked from the big sky above; he could see everything from the ocean to the mountains behind the forest. He looked out towards the horizon that stretched on like the ocean and breathed in the cold air, still smiling wide.

Seven worked them higher and higher, controlling everything by pushing and pulling the steering wheel in front of her in all directions. If she pushed it a little to the right, they banked the other way; if she pulled it, they went higher, higher still. Suddenly the ground was even further away – the whole Earth was just a ball of dust underneath their feet that rolled around the sun, without much meaning. At that thought Mort smiled even wider.

Just like the penguins, they were now going to take a chance on the edge of life, and there was nothing he'd rather do.

"You know, I always thought animals could never know joy like this," Seven said to him, "But I was wrong! If we don't make it, Mort, if we go down and I lose my life one more time, I won't have any regrets – because this time I couldn't say that in this life I haven't felt my full self and tasted all the happiness an animal is capable of enjoying."

Mort couldn't help but agree. The vastness of the sky dazed him, and even the quickest glance down made his brains reel. He felt the wind fill his lungs as it lifted their plane higher and higher and began to sense a freedom he'd never felt before. He looked down with great excitement at the broad sea spread out beneath them, dotted with white sails of ships. He forgot everything in the world but the joy of being up here, just the two of them, the ocean, and the endless sky.

"Oh, but we won't go down," he said to Seven, and even though he knew they couldn't really be sure about that, he couldn't have sounded more enthusiastic. "We will both definitely survive!"

Seven laughed, leaned over, and ruffled his hazel fur.

Then she turned the plane about, and they headed towards the castle.


	24. Chapter 23 - Sky Fighters

CHAPTER 23

 **SKY FIGHTERS**

It wasn't long until Mort and Seven spotted the penguins: thanks to their closed cockpits they were able to fly much higher and faster than them. Clemson's demonic army was present as well; Harpies were swarming all over the place as the three jets went into action against them, performing air combat maneuvers exactly by the book, covering each other, watching for the enemy, spotting and engaging. Mort and Seven watched as they flew scissors, patterns, slashing past each other, angling for position. They tried to raise them on the radio, but all they got was static; they weren't high enough yet.

"Let's see… 'Pull the wheel back to climb, push it in for a glide'…" Seven murmured, repeating Timo's earlier instructions to herself as she fought to make the plane rise even higher. Luckily the _Maverick IV_ took her ill-coordinated manipulations of the control without a whimper and climbed away.

Finally they had reached enough altitude for the transceiver to get a signal; they were close enough for radio contact. They flinched when the radio crackled into life and the air around them was suddenly abuzz with voices – pilot to pilot, plane to plane, a barrage of information, modern sounds of combat, not so different from the sharpening of arrows and the clinking of stones of a battle on the ground.

They watched as four Harpies shot out of the clouds directly beneath the _Maverick I_.

" _Bogeys on your six, Skipper_ ," they heard Private report tersely, " _Altitude is 1000 meters and climbing fast… 1200 meters!_ "

" _Private! You know how I feel about the metric system! We go in feet and inches!_ "

" _Sorry, sorry! Bogeys changed position. Dead ahead now, coming dead ahead at 500 knots._ "

In a matter of seconds the Harpies had passed over the top of the _Maverick I_ , then slowed down, done a 180 degree turn, and gotten back in front of Skipper's jet. Now they were coming in on him fast. Their claws were glimmering, glowing with destructive energy. Red balls of light centered in their palms like some kind of sparkling electricity, and a moment later all four of them were throwing crackling balls of fire at him – they exploded all around in the sky like grenades on a battlefield, each one as powerful as a rocket blast. They failed to hit the plane, but the power of the explosion threw the _Maverick I_ off course for a moment. The left engine started to sputter, then shut down.

Skipper cursed. " _Kowalski, Private, cover me!_ "

" _Roger, Skipper. We're on your left, a little low. Let's bring it to the right, then we'll get a better angle on them._ "

All around them Harpies were coming in strong now, more aggressive than a horde of cloned Morts. The _Maverick I_ and _II_ banked right, smoothly, whereas the _Maverick III_ dropped altitude in hopes of getting past the swarm unnoticed by diving under them.

Skipper did his best to supervise the entire aerial battlefield while simultaneously being engaged in the fight. " _Rico, Clover, you got another one on your tail! Break left! Break left!_ "

Mort and Seven were close below the two of them now; the _Maverick III_ had descended to about the same height as they were flying. They could see them and the approaching Harpy, but they couldn't help them. Rico looked first into the mirror and then over his shoulder to pick up the pursuer, but his eyes were met with only the brightness of the sun that was now behind them. This wasn't the best of situations, having both the sun and a bogey in his blind spot, so he decided to boot full throttle – the twin engines raised in pitch and, her speed increasing immensely, the _Maverick III_ dashed away.

The Harpy was hot on their tail, soaring through the air like a red glowing javelin. A few well-directed bursts of lightning hit the _Maverick III_ 's right engine and went on through to nick the wing tank. Trailing a thin white stream of raw gasoline, the jet shuddered as its speed dropped suddenly, then wheeled to the right and down out of formation.

" _We're hit! We're hit!_ " Clover's voice blasted over the speaker so loudly it left everyone's ears ringing.

 _"Flight Team Three! Flight Team Three! Acknowledge!"_ Skipper repeated, over and over.

Several long and breathless seconds passed before Clover's voice came again. _"Flight Team Three acknowledging!"_

 _"Can you stay airborne, Flight Team Three?"_

 _"Roger, but we can't take another hit! Someone get that bogey off our tail!"_

"Go after that monster," Mort urged Seven, "We've got to help them out!"

Seven nodded and nosed up to get a better sighting on the plane and the Harpy chasing across the horizon. They didn't seem to be going fast enough, so she took her eyes off the nose and its up-tilt and looked at the airspeed dial for a moment. Immediately they began drifting to the left.

"Keep her straight, keep her straight!" Mort squeaked.

"Sorry, sorry!" – Seven managed to level the wings and correct the drift by applying right roll control, and then they headed straight after the _Maverick III_. Finally they caught up with Rico and Clover and intercepted, forcing the Harpy to look away from the _Maverick III_ and pay attention to them instead. They were coming in on the demon from a lower angle – all at once the Harpy turned and dove straight for their plane. They just saw teeth, sharp and white, and claws piercing the nose of the _Maverick IV_ – then the beast crawled up the hood of the speeding plane, and they flinched back when it stared them right in the face.

"Traitor!" the demon hissed at Seven over the noise of the rushing wind and the plane's engines, "You pledged your alliance to King Clemson! You are the one who summoned us to fight for him – why are you breaking your word now, Golden Lemur? Why are you siding with the enemy?!"

Seven clutched the steering wheel so hard her knuckles whitened under her fur. "I should have never trusted someone like him – for he is crueler than any animal I've ever known, with or without the knowledge of magic. He has no heart, that is, none for Frank, none for this world." Just at this moment they were flying right over the castle's rose garden, and for a moment Seven looked down at it, despair in her gaze. "I definitely won't forget all the brutal things he made me do to those poor people," she added, and suddenly her voice sounded frail and tremored with emotion. Mort realized that she wasn't really paying attention to the flight path now; drawing a shivering breath, she momentarily released her grip on the wheel, and he grabbed one side of it to hold it steady.

"This is really interesting!" the Harpy cackled, "Now you talk like an animal again – and back then you had so much fun doing it, didn't you! What is that about? Isn't King Clemson's game an interesting one?"

"There was a time when I used to think like this, but now I'll never forgive myself for messing around like that. This was unacceptable. I believed myself superior to any animal, but really I was just a terrible monster, a being of unbounded cruelty, blinded by my unjust hatred, weak inside and inferior and alone! Taking animals' lives is no game – this isn't some innocent prank, and I should have never summoned the likes of you to spread such anguish, pain, and misery among those poor souls! Go back to the undergrounds, you – I never want to see your faces again!"

The Harpy was still hanging on, sitting calmly and cross-legged on the hood, grinning madly as foam dropped from its mouth and flecked the windshield.

"Pathetic! A demon such as myself could never understand these kinds of… _feelings_. But we don't need you anymore – that red lemur won't only continue to be a great king of this island, he'll also make a great new demon king."

"Oh no, he won't!" Seven sneered, "Because Mort and I freed Faraday. And while I can no longer use magic, he certainly can – he'll finish off the whole lot of you, and then no one will bring you back into this world ever again!"

"Oh, the wickedness! Then let's have all the fun we can while we still have the chance!"

Smiling sweetly, the Harpy reached up to them and tore off the _Maverick IV_ 's windshield with the ease of a fossa tearing the wings off a fly. Mort was so shocked it took him a second to realize what was happening – the next moment he was screaming and cowering under his seat as sharp claws were reaching out for him, bony fingers snatching at his tail, trying to pluck him out of the cockpit.

Almost instantly Seven slammed the throttles forward and jerked the plane around, shaking the Harpy off the hood. "Just try and lay a finger on Mort in front of me, and I'll teach you how gentle the hell you came from is!" she yelled into the demon's face – and then squeezed the tiny red button on top of the right control stick with her thumb, opening fire. Both wing cannons hammered away – like a comet the Harpy plunged to the earth, a fiery, smoky trail streaming behind it.

Mort could feel his heart smash against his ribs as the recoil made the _Maverick IV_ shudder violently in the air. "Gee, thanks!" he murmured, climbing back into his seat and strapping himself in again.

In front of them the _Maverick III_ was back in battle now, some distance ahead. They heard Rico utter something into the microphone.

" _Don't worry; you're fine. Your six is clear now_ ," Skipper's voice answered a moment later, " _Good job, Flight Team Two_."

" _It wasn't us!_ " There was something like wonder in Kowalski's voice.

" _Well, then who was it? Who got that bogey?_ "

" _Skipper, look – there's someone else up here, three o'clock to your right_ ," Clover reported.

Mort and Seven exchanged a glance – they knew they'd been detected. For a moment there was complete radio silence.

" _That's... that's my plane!_ " they heard Private blurt out then.

Mort and Seven watched silently as Skipper opted out and jerked into vertical, knowing that he could see them now as he looked down on them from above.

 _"Sweet Dixie dreidels! Sad Eyes, Witch Lemur, what are you doing up here?!"_

"I'm not a witch anymore," Seven hurried to explain, "We're all fighting on the same side now." – A brief, surprised silence followed.

 _"Don't make me laugh."_ Skipper's voice was quiet, deliberate, forceful. _"Listen, if this means you kidnapped Mort and hijacked Private's plane –!"_

"She didn't kidnap me! What she says is true – we've come up here to tell you that King Julien and Maurice need your help! They're trapped in Clemson's fortress; you need to pick them up from the top of the North Tower before you attack!" Mort quickly interfered, and then Seven explained the penguins without taking a breath what had just happened back in the castle.

"King Julien managed to free his advisor, and I met the two of them after that. We couldn't escape from the castle since there were too many guards at the main door. So we agreed to go up to the North Tower, which is the highest tower of the castle, hoping you'd be able to see us once we're up there and save us with the planes somehow. However, we had to separate because Mort and I needed to save our friend first – but in the end we didn't get a chance to reunite with Julien and Maurice because Clemson's servants had already blocked every way to the tower."

"Yes, and we don't know where they are now… Of course we hope that they were fast enough to make it to the tower after all, before the monsters could get in their way!" Mort added, sounding very worried, "Then they must be waiting there now, and… and we want to help you guys save them!"

Breathlessly the two of them waited for Skipper's response as the radio crackled, emitting only static for a while. Suddenly there was another voice breaking in on the circuit.

 _"You better not fall for those lies, penguins. If you need any more support for this attack, I'll be happy to help – but do not trust her."_

"That's Karl," Seven murmured while gazing at the radar, only for Mort to hear, "Karl's up here, too!" Mort leaned over the side of the open cockpit, and then he saw him – a lonely airship flying right at them at about 5000 feet, the distinctive red balloon visible against the blue ocean, much slower than the planes but heading straight for the _Maverick IV_.

Suddenly their radar warning receiver began to chirp with regular bleeps: _Blip… blip…_

"What's he doing?" Mort asked, as much to himself as to his fellow flier. The airship closed in on them, and the tone grew more insistent: _blip – blip – BLIP – BLIP._

Karl's airship was filling their sight now. Mort could clearly see the rocket pods attached to either side of the fuselage – and realized what the sound meant the same moment Seven voiced the thought aloud.

"Oh dear Frank, that's… that's missile lock! He's got us targeted!"

 _"Excellent observation. Chauncey and I are locked on you,"_ Karl informed them nonchalantly, _"You better disengage while you still can. I'm sick of your cunning tricks, Yasu; whatever it is you're up to now, we won't fall for it again."_

 _"Now hold up a minute, fanaloka. Mort's up there, too,"_ Skipper reminded him, lapsing into a warning tone, _"So you better think twice before you start shooting at anyone here. Besides that's OUR plane you're about to gun down!"_

" _Mort, what the hell were you thinking?!_ " – That was Clover's voice now, sounding more enraged than he'd heard her in a long while. " _There was no need for you to get into all this! Why couldn't you have just stayed out of it and let the two crazy mages settle things between themselves?!_ "

Mort was devastated. "But… but you have to believe us! We're not trying to trick you or anything. Seven is with us now!"

" _Like hell she is!_ " Clover snorted, " _Until Clemson makes her a better offer, maybe… Don't tell me they bought YOU off, too!_ "

" _But what about Julien and Maurice?_ " the voice of the youngest penguin interfered, " _Why should they lie about what happened to them? Maybe they're really just trying to help – there's no way we can let Karl fire at them!_ "

However, the fanaloka seemed to have made up his mind and decided to just ignore any protests. Mort and Seven sat frozen, silent, listening intently to the steadying tone: _BLIPBLIPBLIPBLIPBLIP._ There was a look of panic on Seven's face when she cried into the radio, "No, please, Karl, listen! Don't do it! Please…"

They waited. The blips continued, smooth and steady.

The airship was right in front of them now, and the three jets kept circling their plane, hovering like deadly wasps. Mort could feel his heart clench up painfully in his chest at the thought that they were perhaps contemplating whether or not a weirdo's life like his own was equal in exchange for the eradication of the evil witch that had brought so much harm upon all of them.

 _"I'm not playing anymore, Yasu,"_ Karl warned, _"You won't fool me again. Just bug out and no one gets hurt."_

"Do as he says," Mort said to her, "They won't listen to us, so you better turn the plane around and get us out of here before he blows us to pieces!"

"No! We can't go on like that; this needs to be solved _now_." Teeth clenched, jaw rigid, Seven picked up the radio again and pushed the transmit button.

"Karl, I must beg you to hear me out one more time – and I swear with my whole heart that every word of what I'm going to say to you now is true. It is true that I'm with you now, that I'll do my very best to fight for you, and that if I have to, I'm ready to die with the rest of you. It is true that I'm not a witch anymore; I wasn't ready to deal with magic, to handle this kind of power, so even though I loved using magic so much, I decided I had to give it up. Also, I should've listened to Ma; I'm sorry I caused her so much trouble, I really am, and I only wish I'd realized this sooner. And that's why I want to help you take Clemson down now! I'm fully aware of the fact that there's no way to rectify my past mistakes, that they are in fact unforgivable – but if there's any way I can at least make a bit of it good again, please give me the chance to do so. It's all I ask – no matter how this battle will end, please give me the chance to fight with you for the right thing just for once in my life."

As she spoke another swarm of Harpies poured out of the windows of the castle. The half-lemur, half-giant insect creatures started to ascend, their large leathery wings fluttering rapidly as they rose up toward the aircrafts.

 _"If you're sincerely trying to apologize, you better finish up fast – you might not get a chance again later,"_ Skipper's voice rang out over the radio.

Seven glanced over to Mort, and even though ice-cold fear was pouring through him when he watched the approaching demons, the little mouse lemur smiled at her encouragingly.

Seven hesitated only a moment before she pressed the transmit button again and added, "I'm sorry, Karl, I really am. Not only for what I did – but also for what I said to you earlier. I was jealous; I admit it. But during Franksgiving Ball, when I saw all those lemurs together, united in the name of Frank and so full of music and passion and _love,_ I understood one thing – love is not a matter of gender, but a matter of the heart. I… I really hope you can forgive me for being so disrespectful, and I wish you and Chauncey all the best."

For a moment there was absolute silence on the radio; not one of the pilots spoke.

 _"That's… one hell of an apology,"_ Karl's voice finally came back on the line, and all of a sudden it sounded surprisingly soft, _"I… frankly, I don't know what to say. Let's put this behind us, Yasu, and look forward."_

"Yes, Karl," she answered, smiling. And suddenly she looked so happy and joyous, so relieved it made Mort smile as well.

 _"So that means I can count you guys in now, too?"_ – That was Skipper again, and unlike before there was a very friendly tone in his voice now. They had no time to lose: more Harpies were coming over the castle wall and up at them, shouting, screaming, dozens upon dozens of them – they needed all the support they could get.

"Yes!" Mort cried out joyfully, "Let's all save King Julien! And Maurice, of course. Let's fight – all together, for the freedom of Madagascar!"

 _"Roger that,"_ Skipper confirmed, _"Welcome to the party, Flight Team Four and Five."_

* * *

"You're not going anywhere."

Having emerged from behind some white velvet curtains which covered a recess near one corner of the room, Clemson slowly moved toward the two other lemurs, an evil smirk twisting his lips. He held his gun steadily pointed at them.

"I knew you'd come to rescue him, Julie. How predictable… how convenient. Because now I've got you both!" His face was pallid and drawn, his eyes shadowed and lifeless. He looked all washed out, as if he had aged ten years since his arrival in Madagascar. He waved for a Harpy guard outside in the hallway to come inside for a moment.

– "You, call the others up here as quickly as possible!" he ordered, "I want every guard I've got on these two! Also, I need to announce to everyone that Seven is no longer working with us – she is a false-hearted traitor who needs to be stopped at all costs!"

The Harpy looked shocked, but obeyed in silence.

Clemson turned around again to his victims. "Now, I will show you what it means to –."

He fell silent when suddenly four huge, moving shadows fell through the window next to them, accompanied by a tremendous howling roar, growing louder, louder yet – the din of throbbing engines sent jarring vibrations rippling through the walls and floors of the building, through their legs and backs. Then the shadows dipped below the window line and all three of them peered out in time to see four planes looming large _right outside the window_. The vibrations jarring up his spine, Clemson was startled enough to cease paying attention to his victims for a moment –

 _"Run!"_ Maurice cried – his feet were moving before he even started thinking about it. He and Julien sprinted towards the other end of the room and the second exit and were out the door before Clemson even had a chance to yell curses after them. Maurice clenched his teeth; the pain came in fierce steps with every beat of his heart. A shot echoed down the corridor and ricocheted after them, buzzing past Julien's head and gouging a long, ugly chunk out of the plaster on one side. "Keep going!" Maurice yelled – Julien stumbled, but he didn't fall. For a moment Maurice regretted they'd given away their gun, but Clemson was the better shooter anyway, so it wouldn't have helped them much.

"You're not going to get away that easily!"

The red lemur was at their heels, and the only thing that mattered now was to outrun him. Julien was following close behind Maurice as they kept running and running and running through endless corridors, trying to get to the other side of the castle. They heard him fire more bullets and kept running from side to side so he would keep missing – so far it was working. On their feet they could feel the vibrations of the bullets bouncing on the floor, sometimes only inches away from them. Julien was lagging behind slightly.

Finally, breathlessly, they arrived at the base of the North Tower. Maurice kicked the door to the staircase open. It splintered in easily, tearing itself from the doorjamb.

They skittered up the stairs, spiral and spiral and spiral, breath rasping in their chests and legs aching from the run and the climb. Clemson was screaming behind them, cursing them and yelling at them to stop. And Maurice was frightened, terrified. He thought he'd known fear earlier, but no – not properly. Now he knew what terror pure and true felt like, for the first time in his life.

It was horrible. But it fueled the drive to run, run, _run_ , to defy the grinding pain shooting up and down his body.

To stay alive for another extra second.

 _The penguins will be up there. They'll see us. They'll save us!_

* * *

 **A/N:** _…Last two chapters coming soon! Thank you for coming back again and again and reading all the way until here. I'm very honored and grateful to have you as readers, supporting and accompanying me through my story this far. Thank you so much._


	25. Chapter 24 - Sacrifice

CHAPTER 24

 **SACRIFICE**

The five aircrafts had moved steadily forwards into enemy territory and were flying over and around Clemson's castle when Skipper gave his squadron the final instructions for the attack.

 _"Okay, so I actually planned this attack with three aircrafts; now we've got five – even better_. _That means we can attack from several sides simultaneously,"_ he explained, _"Considering Flight Team Four's earlier report, our plan of attack is now the following: Flight Team Two, you head for the South Tower, distance 1500 feet from your current position. Flight Team Three, you head for the East Tower, distance 1200 feet, and Flight Team Four for the West Tower, distance 800 feet. Flight Team Five, since you are not properly equipped to dogfight in that bulky airship of yours, you'll keep your distance and watch surroundings to cover our tails. The rest of you, come in as close as you can – make sure you scare the hell out of them! Meanwhile I'll come up from the north side and look out for Ringtail and Maurice. Let's hope they've made it to that tower in the meantime… Remember, it is imperative that we do not open fire under any circumstances until they're out of the danger zone! As soon as I have them aboard, we'll finish bringing that castle down together. Does everyone copy?"_

 _"Roger,"_ the other Flight Teams answered before Mort and Seven could even sort out what exactly Skipper wanted them to do. The leader's plane swung close to the _Maverick IV_ , wing to wing. _"You too, Flight Team Four?"_

"Uh… sure. It's just that, uh… This is sort of our first flight…"

 _"Yeah, so I noticed. Look, you guys needn't fight on the front line. Just take your position and try not to die, alright?"_ – Seven and Mort made eye contact, just a glance, and exchanged a curt nod, acknowledging the challenge. Then the fight was on again.

Mort watched in awe as Kowalski and Private pushed the _Maverick II_ through a series of loops and rolls, climbing high into the cloudless sky, then plunging back toward the ground, effectively shaking off a pack of Harpies on their tail. He also watched as Skipper, flying like a madman, jerked back on the control stick, did a half roll and then pulled right aileron and hard right rudder, skidding his plane into a right turn that no one would have thought possible in an aircraft that once had been a toy plane.

There was no way they could fly like this.

Neither could Karl, but at least he was equipped with the best weapons – while his airship wasn't fast, it could carry incomparably more heavy weaponry than the whole rest of their little squadron. The Harpies didn't even dare to approach him. More and more of them were coming in – there was death up here, screaming and attacking and soaring in every direction, and suddenly Mort felt small and forlorn.

Seven's voice cut into his thoughts. "Mort, do you really want to stay with me even though I've been such an evil witch? You don't have to do this, you know; I can just put you down. It's not for you to atone for my mistakes!"

Mort pushed his fear to the back of his mind and forced himself to dredge up his courage and give her a reassuring nod. "I want to stay with you, Seven. You're not an evil witch anymore now. You're my friend – and friends are supposed to stick together in situations like this."

"Thank you." Her smile was dazzling, her face bright with undisguised glee. His answer seemed to have a noticeable effect on her; immediately she looked a lot calmer. Maybe that little support was all she'd needed, and Mort was happy to have given it to her. She jerked the wheel to the left – heading straight into the fight.

Soon they were flying at the top of their speed; Mort's eyes itched fiercely behind the glass of his goggles. He wiped a finger across both lenses, but it didn't help much to clear his sight. With Skipper shouting instructions from his readouts, the battle closed in rapidly, and all five aircrafts were now hard at it, circling and dodging and supporting each other the best they could.

" _Two bogeys, five o'clock low, Kowalski._ " – That was Clover's voice, coming in loud and strong. " _Reverse right!_ " – Just as her words rang out, the _Maverick II_ was already caught in what seemed a red storm of hail and lightning. Two Harpies swept down on the plane – Kowalski and Private dove. The Harpies stayed on them. They streaked across the sky, low, skimming the surface of the Indian Ocean.

" _Still on your six, coming at you like a bat out of hell! Bug out! Bug out!_ "

More bolts of destructive energy flew past them from the Harpies that were hot in pursuit. Kowalski pulled a hard left, then a vertical, straight up.

" _We can't shake them off!_ " Private cried, his voice sounding slightly panicked. The two penguins were putting the _Maverick II_ through some fancy paces now, owning the sky at several hundred knots and turning square corners, but when they came out of the maneuver and looked around, the two Harpies were still right at them.

" _Wait, I'll cover you_." Skipper steered the _Maverick I_ closer to the Harpies, jerking left, right, twisting and turning, coming in on the demons from behind, no matter how hard they tried to evade and break away. For a long breathless moment they kept streaking around the sky at an insane speed, testing and taunting each other, each refusing to back down… until Skipper had his missiles locked on them. When they realized this, both Harpies abruptly dipped their wings and peeled off in a dive that took them into the cloud cover and away.

" _Bogeys turning away_ ," Private reported with obvious relief in his voice.

However, not far behind the _Maverick II_ another Harpy shot down like an arrow at his other brother's already damaged plane. Rico and Clover pulled up at once and slammed right into the demon – it shrieked with pain but didn't drop. With all the strength it had left, it kept clinging to the wing of the _Maverick III_ , all wet feathers and bloody breath. It continued to tear at the structure of the wing, trying to rip it loose from the previously fractured hull.

 _"Bottoms up!"_ they heard Clover yell as Rico tipped the plane upside down, trying to dislodge the demon's claws. The creature wrenched backward onto the nose of the plane but still refused to let go. They were hurtling nose first toward the solid rock face of a cliff nearby when, mere seconds before smashing into its unforgiving surface, the Harpy finally retracted its claws and swooped back up into the sky. Rico barely managed to whip the plane around in a tight turn to avoid the collision. The engines howled like a sick animal, straining desperately.

Slowly they kept fighting their way ahead through the hostile swarm, finally managing to move into their destined positions.

All four jets were now positioned facing the castle's towers while Karl and Chauncey's airship hovered in their periphery, keeping their tails covered.

The balloon of the airship had been perforated several times and the _Maverick II_ and _III_ , too, were heavily damaged and full of flak holes caused by the Harpies' attacks. Clover and Rico struggled to keep their plane airborne as they were closing in on the East Tower. Coming in parallel to them were Mort and Seven in the _Maverick IV_ , directly approaching the South Tower, just as planned. The _Maverick IV_ was the only aircraft that had received barely a scratch so far, since Mort and Seven had wisely stayed as far away from the enemy as possible and left the more intense part of the dogfighting to the professionals.

Now their eyes were following the sweeps of their radar. Three tiny red dots were positioned around the target circle in the center, one a little further off, and one single dot was flashing towards it from the upper fringe of the screen as the penguin leader approached the castle from the north side.

 _"We're in position, Skipper,"_ they heard the penguin team's second-in-command report.

When they looked down at the castle again, they saw another swarm of Harpies charging out from all sides – like a swarm of bees coming out of a hive, the demons were pouring out of the building in malicious flocks.

 _"I'm coming in,"_ Skipper replied, _"Keep those monsters busy."_

But that was just the problem – they were already too close for new counterattacks.

Now that they were forced to hold position in order to target the towers, they were practically defenseless: if they fired away now, their rockets wouldn't only hit the incoming demons but also the castle itself and without doubt destroy it right away. They couldn't veer off to aim at the demons from a greater distance without losing their target; neither could they open fire now as long as Julien and Maurice were still in there.

All they could do right now was watch as Clemson's servants came closer and closer – they were trapped like defenseless prey by a pack of furious fossa.

 _"Any sign of the missing lemurs?"_ Kowalski asked, trying not to sound too concerned and failing miserably. Everyone had realized the seriousness of the situation, and the sight of the rapidly approaching enemy frayed their nerves right to the very edge. They listened to the transmission with bated breath now, settling their paws and flippers on the sticks, letting their thumbs hover over the fire buttons.

 _"No, unfortunately I –."_ – Another moment of crackling radio silence. – _"Wait, yeah, I'm getting a visual now! I see them! I see them right there! And Clemson, too – Hoover Dam, he's hard on their heels!"_

Mort and Seven exchanged a terrified glance.

 _"Have Julien and Maurice cleared the danger zone?"_

 _"No, not yet. But they're on their way – heading for the tower now; they're almost there."_

They needed to take the castle down now to keep the Harpies from coming in – or the Harpies would take _them_ down.

 _"Hurry and pick them up, Skipper. We need to open fire – bogeys are getting too close! We're on condition red. Repeat, condition red!"_

 _"Hold position. I'm circling the tower now; they're coming up. Almost there. Don't fire until I give the order!"_

The Harpies were so close now that they could see them clearly, their crooked, razor-sharp teeth flashing, their faces distorted into twisted, horrible masks of savage hatred.

 _"Any time now, Skipper,"_ Kowalski urged, and Mort's heart twisted at the panic they could hear stark in his voice, even muted and scratchy over the radio.

 _"Not yet, give them a second!"_

Sounds of rushing air vibrated against the hulls around them – the demonic creatures were up close, preparing to deliver their fiery assaults again.

 _"Skipper, we can't hold out much longer! New bogeys coming in and fast –!"_

 _"I know. Wait!"_

The beasts raised their paws, forming red balls of energy in their palms – they were so close now that even over the engine noise they could hear the crackle of the deadly current.

Seconds ticked by. Maybe minutes. It felt like forever.

Mort couldn't take it anymore. He closed his eyes.

– " _Fire_."

* * *

Julien and Maurice ran up and up but seemed to come no nearer the top. For one irrational moment it seemed to Maurice as if the staircase was a trap – it was never going to end, it was going to keep them in the twist until Clemson would finally manage to catch up with them and finish them off.

But he didn't.

When it seemed as though neither his legs nor his lungs would hold out for one more step, they'd finally reached the very top of the tower – a large viewing platform surrounded by the battlement wall. And when they stumbled out on the platform, Skipper was _there_ – the sun glancing on her back, the _Maverick I_ was cruising around the tower in a beautiful Lufbery circle, just waiting for two additional passengers to join the flight.

Maintaining low altitude, the penguin leader opened the Plexiglas canopy and waved at the two lemurs. "Jump!" he yelled over to them as he came in on the tower, close enough they could have hit the plane's hull if they'd thrown a rock straight at it, _"Now!"_

And they did – Maurice put on a final burst of speed and leapt off the edge of the platform, arms outstretched, curling his toes for extra lift. For a moment, he hung there, suspended in time and space – then gravity grabbed him, yanked him down. He screamed as the winds tore at him. For a moment he thought his flailing legs would never find shelter –

But then he hit down hard in the _Maverick I_ 's cockpit right next to Skipper, causing the passenger seat to split in two. His foot got trapped amidst a tangle of bent metal, a long splinter of wood from the wrecked seat back jutting into his calf – but he was safe.

Grimacing and spluttering, he pulled himself up instantly, gazing back – only to see Julien jump off right behind him with outstretched arms, wide, staring eyes, and a silent scream on his lips… not far enough.

For a moment he heard Julien scream, but then his voice was ripped away by the deafening winds. Without conscious thought Maurice scrambled forth and unhesitatingly flung himself over the edge of the cockpit, reaching out as far as he could – down below, stretched to his full length, his fingers clinging to the heavy structure of the landing gear, the lemur king was holding on for dear life.

"Julien!" Their paws met – clung. The younger lemur's fingers dug into Maurice's as he clawed his way up headfirst, and Skipper was there to help pull him up, but just then a sinister flock of Harpies came up right beside them, snapping and biting at both wings of their plane. Their flyby rocked them with a blur of shadow and noise – Skipper pulled the stick back, and they shot up as they heard the crackling of energy bolts pass under the fuselage. He had to keep both flippers on the steering lever now or else they knew they'd be dead seconds later.

"Pull him up and get him in here," he yelled over his shoulder, "Come on, Maurice!"

He went into a hard evasive maneuver, turning directly towards the ground, flipping upside down and trying to circle into a reverse direction to escape – Maurice tried his best not to fall out while clinging to Julien's paws at the same time. However, the centrifugal forces threatened to pull them apart any second – tears were streaming down Maurice's cheeks as he screamed against the wind, his voice angry and desperate.

"I can't! I can't make it!"

"Damn it, Maurice! Try!" Sweat trickled its way across Skipper's face as he pushed the _Maverick I_ for all she'd got, leaning into the windshield, flippers firmly glued to the steering lever, eyes peeled open. Maurice watched as Julien pushed his foot into the side of the landing gear; for a moment his feet seemed to find rest and Maurice felt the strain on his arms lessen.

Meanwhile the other Flight Teams made their moves: a deafening screech split the air just before a fusillade of small rockets slammed into the South, East, and West Tower about two-thirds of the way up their sides. All three towers instantly burst into billowing fireballs, flaming meteors that spewed out over a considerable distance. The entire castle shuddered violently and tottered, belching a great plume of smoke.

The North Tower they had just jumped off, however, was still standing – finally managing to shake off the Harpies, they roared past it again in a wide arc. And down below on the platform, his slender figure bathed in the sun's golden glow, a red lemur was now watching their struggle… the gun in his paw pointed at them, the barrel tracking their movements with fluid ease.

An inarticulate cry of horror froze upon Maurice's lips.

What happened next was so fast he didn't know what to do. Just as Julien was almost within his grasp, the space where his feet were resting crumbled away and then his terrible scream pierced through the air, a streak of light illuminating his frightened face as Maurice saw him plummet down into the depth, his body tumbling and twisting through the mind-numbing cold air.

 _"Julien! No –!"_

An inchoate cry tore through Maurice's throat. At the same time the aircraft began rattling uncontrollably – all of a sudden it was hot in the cockpit, as if the jet itself was emitting heat. The dashboard was beeping furiously, blinking red lights under the control panel of the landing gear signaling _system failure error_.

 _"Sweet Mother Macarthur!"_ Skipper cursed, "That bastard! That freaking, miserable little bastard! – All Flight Teams, hold your fire!" he yelled into the radio before the others could continue their destructive work, "We've lost Ringtail!" – He turned around, lowering his voice. "Maurice, I'm so sorry…!"

But the older lemur barely heard him. His mind was elsewhere, his gaze frantically flying from right to left as he leaned over the side of the cockpit, searching the ground down below. He couldn't believe it. He couldn't. Julien had to be alive –!

Then something moved into his view, and he could no longer see the ground – Clemson's servants were back, dozens of them circling the jet again with shrill moans and cackling, mocking laughter, their faces elongated with mouths agape.

"Buttermilk biscuits!" Skipper cursed as he grasped the stick hard and took the plane straight up into a vertical climb. Frigid air blasted at them. The _Maverick I_ cut trails into the sky, but two of the demons stayed close on her tail. Skipper pushed the throttle forward, kicking the rudder and whipping the stick, making the plane dive again with a turning roll. He showed every trick he could pull out of the _Maverick I_ : hard right, then hard left, rolling into vertical, flapping into a dive. But no matter what he did, they stayed with them.

There was no escape – droves of Harpies converged onto their plane, their dark fur whipping around as the winds whirled, their screeches and screams deafening them. Skipper pushed the throttle all the way forward, full afterburner – the engines howled as they jumped into overdrive. Maurice squeezed his eyes shut and clasped his paws before his face, convinced they'd blow up any second –

And then it was over. All of a sudden the Harpies vanished into a luminescent mass of churning mist and vicious claws. Only moments later, the cloud dispersed into dozens of howling forms, and then their ghastly shrieks faded – in a matter of seconds every demon up there was gone. Nothing was left but the beautiful dawn; a rosy-colored sky edging its way to blue brightened above their heads. Silence enveloped the jungle once more, with the exception of the engine noises of their planes.

"What in the name of pickled schnauzers?!" Skipper breathlessly uttered into his microphone.

For a moment there was only silence on the line, but then they heard Seven's voice, distorted but undeniably her: _"He made it! He made it!"_ They could hear her and Mort's gleeful laughter over the radio. _"Look, everyone – Faraday made it; he took them away, he undid my last spell in Clemson's services! Now those demons can't harm us anymore. They won't harm anyone ever again; they'll never come back to this world!" –_ Stunned silence followed her words for a moment.– " _Farewell, King Julien I… Now it's all over!_ "

 _"Hooray!"_ Mort squealed behind her in the background, his voice high and happy, and then relieved laughter followed on all the radios.

" _Well, finally!_ " Clover muttered, " _I was beginning to wonder if we'd actually survive this!_ "

 _"Well, that's really good news,"_ Karl replied, _"Because we just ran out of ammo."_ From behind him Chauncey gave a confirming hiss.

 _"So did we,"_ Kowalski added, _"Besides all that gyrating and swooping used up our fuel twice as fast."_

In the background Private also had some more bad news: _"Kowalski, check our undercarriage! I'm sure I felt one of those monsters get too close before we got it…"_

 _"Damn, you're right. Skipper,_ _we really can't stay aloft much longer. We've got to land in about five minutes if we're going to land at all!"_ Indeed the rest of them could see huge clouds of black smoke pouring from the tail section of the _Maverick II_.

"Roger that," Skipper confirmed, "Let's bug out of here, get these babies down in a hurry and then look for Ringtail –."

"I see him!" – Just then Maurice grasped the penguin leader's flipper so tight it hurt, and Skipper turned away from the radio, the rest of his transmission suddenly forgotten. "I see him, Skipper, look! He's alive! He's down in the castle's moat!"

Skipper leaned over the edge of the cockpit and peered down. In the moat around the ruins of the destroyed castle he could see Julien, alive and well…

But he wasn't alone. Just as Skipper was gazing down, another lemur climbed into the moat and began approaching Julien, slowly, steadily.

Skipper's eyes narrowed, his expression growing dark. Very dark. "So is Clemson."

* * *

Julien stood frozen, mesmerized. What felt like minutes ticked by, though it might have been seconds. The adrenaline coursing through him skewed his sense of time.

Clemson tightened his grip on the gun in his paw, his thumb automatically going to the hammer, his forefinger gently hooking itself around the trigger.

Julien waited for that slender finger to pull it, for the convulsive jerk that would bring out the gleaming bullet, the explosion, the spurt of smoke – and he, lurching forward, falling face first onto the stony ground. Sweat was dripping off him in layers, and his breath hitched in and out of him as he tried to keep himself from crying while panic threw its arms around him and wouldn't let go.

But then the red lemur lowered the gun again, a smirk barely breaking the line of his lips. Julien guessed he wanted to prolong the enjoyment he derived from this delicious moment of victory.

"Well, here we are, Julie." Clemson spoke slowly, dragging out every word, savoring every second of the panic he was inflicting upon his arch foe. "And once again it's either you or me. It's always been this way, from the very first day we met back in the Central Park Zoo. And now I've got you… Finally, after all this time!"

Julien could feel his heart leap into a frantic staccato as claws of panic curled into him, twisting his stomach. "And then what?" he asked, surprised to hear his own voice. The words tumbled out before he could think about them.

Clemson frowned. "What do you mean?"

"You'll kill me, and then what?" Julien swallowed hard; his throat was dry like sandpaper, his lungs heavy. "You already have my crown and my island – what will killing me accomplish?"

"Everything." Clemson's eyes slid to his face, and the silver lemur quailed beneath the look in them. "You are my arch nemesis, Julien. Killing you will fulfill my one and only true purpose in life." A joyless smile came to Clemson's face and Julien gazed back into his madly sparkling eyes, thinking that if he looked into them too long, he would surely go insane, but he did it, knowing he couldn't look away.

"But I can't believe this! Don't you see? This won't solve _anything!_ " He didn't even know how he mustered the courage to raise his voice. "This… is not what you want… Deny it all you want, to yourself, to the rest of the world – but being king is not the thing you wished for most. It's something else, something much more important…"

Julien took a step forward, his heart like a stone in his chest at the way Clemson was staring at him. He was dancing on a wire, and he didn't know how much longer he could keep himself from falling. His voice dropped to a hoarse whisper as he added, "All you ever wanted… was to be loved. Wasn't it!"

The red lemur's face hardened suddenly and his eyes went cold. He shoved the gun in the air toward him again, his paw gripping the handle so tight his knuckles under the red fur turned white. "Shut up."

And then he fired, twice.

The first shot ripped into Julien's shoulder. The second one smashed into his leg. Blood spurted from the wounds, drenching his fur. Julien stumbled back, gritting his teeth and crying out in pain – how he still managed to stay on his feet, he didn't know.

"You killed my dreams first, Julien. And the only thing that kept me going all these years was my burning thirst for revenge!" Clemson stared back at him, sparks of vivid anger flaring in his eyes now. "You killed me. Hoboken killed me. Seven killed me. And yet I'm still standing here… yet _I'm_ the one who is about to finish you off now – to finally send you to hell, where you belong!"

Julien straightened himself up again with willpower he didn't know he possessed. Blood was running down his arm and thigh; he brought his trembling paw up to touch the wound on his shoulder, wiping the glutinous substance from his silver fur, thick rivulets of it staining his fingers.

"I wasn't the one who killed your dreams, and you know this. _You_ are the one who's insane, Clemson – you did this all to yourself! You knew these dreams were poisonous and deadly, hopeless beyond all bounds! But you were too proud to give them up, too obsessed with them to ever let go. You held on too tight and ended up empty-pawed. And now you're lost – because you can't make things right, can't get away from yourself… from the irrevocable choice you made. Facing Seven fail to get you what you wanted – it was like facing your own failure, over and over again. But now it's too late to regret this."

Every muscle in the red lemur's face focused with intent as he stared back at Julien. Suddenly his paws were visibly shaking; he moved his fingers slightly, getting a better grip on the gun. "No." His voice had dropped almost to a whisper. "No, that's not true…"

"Yes, it is! Because the only one who ever meant anything to you was the one you chose to sacrifice in order to fulfill these dreams. And you just couldn't live with yourself with that decision, knowing that your best friend had to die because of your own twisted sense of pride. You always have to have things your way, Clemson, or not at all. But you can't sow bitter seeds and pray for a harvest of sweetness… it was just a matter of time until your restless quest for power would become an obsession that would take you to any extreme – even death." Paws still raised, Julien took a tiny step ahead toward the red lemur. Even though, of the two of them, he was the one who was armed, Clemson began moving backward. At that moment Julien saw a million things flash in his emerald eyes, and then something broke behind them.

 _"Shut up!"_

Clemson shot again. The bullet hit Julien's stomach dead center. His vision churned, and the taste of blood flooded his mouth, threatened to gag him. He could feel it running down the back of his throat, coating his tongue. He swallowed it. Held himself still. Enduring. Trying to keep his voice unaffected.

"After we'd gotten away from Hoboken, after you'd escaped into the Sahara, you could have had it all…," he murmured, a gush of meaty blood pouring out over his bottom lip, "Freedom… a love to last a lifetime. Why would you even need my kingdom when you already had one that was so much bigger, that could have offered you so much more? Why did you choose to sacrifice it? Why?" Clutching his midsection, he bent over, gasping and spitting blood, the words clawing their way out between coughs. – "It was a useless decision… so damn useless!"

When he looked up again he saw the muzzle of Clemson's gun hovering only inches away from his face. He had no idea where he found the strength to raise himself up again, to rise like a wraith before his foe, soaking and bleeding and sweating.

– "…Because killing me is not going to give you what you wish for most." Thick rivulets of blood were dripping from the edge of Julien's chin as his arch foe's image began to blur before his eyes. He felt himself growing weaker, felt the life drain from his body with each second; he was about to faint, and he fought it. "– It's love. _Love._ That's why you dreamed of becoming king in the first place – because you wanted to be loved by your people, not because you wanted power over them. But when you couldn't fulfill this dream, you became bitter towards life and began taking your frustration out on everyone. Your disappointment soon turned into a destructive greed for vengeance, for power over those you've been wronged by. That's why from the moment the throne was yours, you ruled over this island as a miserable, reckless, blood-thirsty tyrant. But you're missing a crucial part of the whole issue… You can force your subjects to obey you. You can force them to die for you. But you can never force them to _love_ you."

Julien tried to continue but only coughed violently, retching. "The only one who ever loved you with all his heart – no matter if it was a real heart or not – was your own creation," he finally ground out, his voice sharp with pain, his breath raspy, "But despite the fact that you relished being loved by him like you probably haven't relished anything else, you never thought about returning that love – all _you_ ever loved and cared about was yourself. And that's why you sacrificed him, and he willingly went along with it to make you happy – even at the cost of his life."

Another coughing fit hit him. Big droplets of blood sprayed the ground around him.

– "If you think about this just for a moment, you'll realize that I'm right – and that shooting me now won't change or undo anything. It won't bring you back what you're missing… It won't bring him back to you, or bring you to his side."

Julien was on his knees now, bracing himself on his paws, digging his fingers into the dirt. He couldn't take more than that – the next shot would finish him off for good.

So he had lost, he thought. But at least he had said everything that needed to be said.

For a long time nothing happened. The pain in his stomach was becoming unbearable; he almost wished that Clemson would just hurry and get it over with.

But then, awfully slowly, the red lemur lowered the gun.

"You're right," he answered, his voice strangely calm and steady. "Nothing ever will."

Julien raised his head a little, squinting up at him through the white-hot blur of pain.

– "Except this."

And Clemson raised the gun to his own temple and pulled the trigger.


	26. Chapter 25 - Checkmate

CHAPTER 25

 **CHECKMATE**

Julien watched Clemson's body slump to the ground beside him. The sound of the gunshot rang and buzzed in his ears. The wisps of gun smoke reflected in the scant light as they floated in midair. He reached over to touch the other lemur's paw and feel his pulse and knew he wasn't pretending to be dead.

It was over.

Julien ran his tongue across his teeth and spat blood onto the floor. That vile taste wouldn't leave his mouth. He suspected it would be with him for a while. It took a few seconds for him to realize how many bullets he'd taken, and once he did, it felt as though he was going to bleed out right there. Warm blood soaked his fur in many places. He lay on his side, both paws pressing hard over the wound in his stomach, fighting the panic, the blinding flashes of pain that wracked his body up and down… fighting for his life.

He'd survived all terror and all suffering Clemson had inflicted upon him, since the very first day Alice had brought him to their habitat in the Central Park Zoo, and now it was over, once and for all – so he wouldn't die just now!

He could feel his vision begin to fade when he suddenly heard the sound of engines nearby. And then voices grew louder, familiar voices – Julien could feel the darkness threatening to consume his consciousness, but he fought it off and forced himself to look up at his friends who came climbing down into the moat and running towards him.

Skipper was the first one to reach him, staring down at him with wide, shocked eyes as he found him lying on his back, drenched in his own blood. _"Ringtail!"_

"S-Skipper… it's… good to see you," the lemur king murmured.

"Oh, Hoover Dam…!" He squatted down on the ground and clasped his flipper on Julien's shoulder. "Hold on, soldier. Hold on!"

His body a throbbing network of torment, Julien weakly lifted a paw, moving his fingers over the flipper on his shoulder. Skipper held his paw tightly while he reached his other flipper out to grab Clemson's wrist and check for a pulse. "I wouldn't have thought it of you, Ringtail," he murmured, "But you really did it. You killed him."

Julien blinked his eyes slowly. "What…? No, no. He did that to himself."

He knew that Skipper would believe him. He wasn't the type to kill a lemur in cold blood… to murder anyone. Not even Clemson. Besides, the gun still clasped in the red lemur's lifeless paw clearly confirmed his statement.

"I see," Skipper murmured, and then from far off in the distance more shouts echoed, more voices heading this way.

The others came running up to them now, too, and Julien felt himself being lifted up in strong, familiar arms. Maurice clutched him close to his chest as he kept whispering to him, breathing out Julien's name with deep love and despair as he covered his face with tear-wet kisses. And Julien threw his arms around him and buried his face in his white chest fur, reveling in the sweet warmth of the older lemur's body as he finally let it all go and allowed darkness to flood his senses.

* * *

Clover and the penguins were remaining behind while Maurice took Julien to Dr. S' cave. They were standing around Clemson's dead body, looking down on the red lemur.

"So… this is it," said Clover. "Frank must have gotten our wish rocks after all!"

Kowalski rolled his eyes. "Well, if you want to believe that…"

Skipper stared down at Clemson, who lay so still, so very still, eyes closed and lips half parted, frothy blood staining them. He frowned.

"Not quite the way I would've wished for things to work out."

But Clover just shrugged. "He deserved to die. The only thing I regret about this is that it wasn't me who finished him off!"

The rogue penguin cocked his head to one side, a soft growl rumbling in his throat.

Private nodded his approval. "I guess you're right, Rico. This couldn't have been avoided. Evil has compromised him too much."

Their leader stood quite still, gazing down into the dead face of the lemur who had caused his friends so much harm. "What about you now, Clemson? No more 'all hail the misunderstood, unprincipled, sociopathic lemur'? No more nefarious schemes. No more lies to destroy us… to destroy _you_."

Clover screwed her mouth sideways and raised her eyebrows. "Do you regret it?"

Skipper stared at the ground for a few moments, his eyes boring a hole into the muddy earth. Finally, slowly, he shook his head. "It wouldn't make a difference anyway. What is done, is done." He turned away from the scene for a moment, gazing up at the wide blue sky and the seagulls circling above. There seemed to be something provoking his mind into deep reflection. "It's just that… when I was talking to him before…"

Private looked at him, beak agape. "Wait, you don't think –!"

"It wasn't you, Skipper," Kowalski said, shaking his head, "It wasn't you who drove him into doing that. This has been a long time coming. At that point, nothing you could have ever said to him would have changed his mind about it."

The leader nodded sternly. "I guess so." Then he reached out his flipper and touched the red lemur's lids almost gently, closing the dead eyes. "Well, that's checkmate to you, Clemson."

"So are we just… going to leave him here then?" the rookie asked tentatively.

"Oh, yes. The fossa will come and get him," Clover said with a vicious smirk, "There will be at least _someone_ he ever made happy, then."

With eyes that would never forgive, she flicked one last disdainful look at the red lemur and then turned to leave. The penguins followed her.

Just as they'd climbed back out of the moat, Skipper's radio beeped.

 _"Mayday! Mayday!"_ Mort's voice came out thin and distorted through the tiny speaker, " _Where are you guys? Anybody out there?! Hellooo…!"_ There was a tone of urgency in his voice which they didn't know from him. They shielded their eyes against the sun's blinding glare as their gazes searched the sky; they soon heard and then saw the _Maverick IV_ as it sped just over the edge of the trees that lined the mountain range behind the destroyed castle.

"Oh dear Frank, they're still up there!" Clover exclaimed.

"I read you, Sad Eyes," Skipper replied into the radio, "What's your status?" – No reply. – "Flight Team Four, please respond. Over."

"They're so panicked they're forgetting to release the microphone button when they're finished talking," Kowalski guessed.

"Probably." Skipper kept trying to respond to their calls even though his efforts appeared to be in vain. "Flight Team Four, we read you. What's your status? I repeat. What's your status? Over."

Finally the radio call came again. _"For Frank's sake, please help us!"_ That was Seven's voice now. _"The… the plane is starting to make really strange noises –!"_

"Well, I guess that's because you're almost out of fuel by now. You've got to put it down!"

 _"Yes, we're aware of that!"_ She started to sound nervous, too; her voice took on a higher pitch. " _But HOW on earth are we supposed to do that? We just can't figure out how to land this thing! Really, we've tried everything – it only keeps going higher and higher!"_

 _"I'm scared!"_ Mort called again, tears coming through his voice now, _"Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!"_

"Timo must have forgotten to tell them how it works," Private said worriedly.

"Oh, mama." Kowalski smacked his forehead with his palm. "That's _exactly_ the reason why we usually don't put civilians into combat –!"

"Shh…!" The leader flapped his flipper at them to silence them before he spoke into his radio again, "Hold on, you two! Don't panic. Do you think you can steer her back towards the beach?"

 _"Yes,"_ came their tentative voices in unison.

"Good. Do that, and then I'll talk you through the landing procedure. Over." He put the radio down and waved his team to leave. "– Come on, we've got to make a dash for the beach and help those kids down."

The five of them hurried off, leaving behind them what seemed like another world as they slipped away. What was left of the old castle was abandoned once more, with only trees and flowers for company… and a couple of fossa, who were catching the scent of fresh prey.

When they breathlessly arrived at the beach a little later, they soon spotted the approaching plane in the cloudless sky. "Flight Team Four, we've got a visual on you."

– This time they received an answer right away.

 _"We can see you, too!"_ Mort squealed into the microphone, _"Can you guide us down now?"_

Skipper squinted his eyes in an effort to estimate their altitude and velocity. "Yes. Don't panic. Keep her straight. Make her do what you want her to do."

He then gave them instructions how to reduce power and drop the gear to initiate the final descent while Clover and the rest of his team hurried off to take ground control posts; they positioned themselves along the imaginary runway so Mort and Seven could see the field in which to set down.

"You need to approach the runway correctly. Make a slight turn to the right and try to anticipate the flight path as you do."

 _"What?!"_

"That means, return the wheel to level flight before the turn is completed," Skipper explained. They obviously managed to do as he said and came in a bit steep, but almost before he warned them they were already correcting it.

For a while everything looked fine; however, when they began maneuvering into the downwind, the plane struggled to fly on the edge of a stall, and Mort and Seven struggled for control on the edge of panic. Every bit of air turbulence snatched at the wings, and even down here Skipper could hear the sound of the stall warning horn wailing like a banshee.

 _"Frank…!"_ Seven swore, or prayed.

 _"We're going to crash! We're going to crash!"_ Mort cried into the microphone.

"Stay calm and let the nose down a bit further. You're coming in too slow and losing lift because you're not gliding down at a steep enough angle," Skipper instructed them, his calm helping to restore theirs, "Level your wings… easy… level… you're settling."

The plane glided downward the last few feet – the forward landing gear touched the sand first, and the plane skipped and bounced back into the air. Skipper's teammates left their positions and bolted in all directions, Clover and Kowalski seeking shelter behind the next palm tree and Rico and Private throwing themselves into the ocean.

Mort and Seven made a second attempt, landing front wheels first again – the plane hit hard and bounced again. Skipper clenched his jaw, watching and giving a constant stream of instructions as calmly as possible until they understood that they had to let the aircraft touch down on its rear wheel first. This way they were finally able to bring it down. The _Maverick IV_ rolled for a long distance; she almost overshot the runway and would have crashed right into a palm grove at the end of the beach, had Skipper not shouted, "Brake! BRAKE!" into his radio.

Finally the plane screeched to a clangorous halt, the brakes burned out and the tires damaged – but the pilots were alive and well.

Clover and the penguins gathered around the _Maverick IV_ when the two young lemurs climbed out of the plane, legs shaking, knees buckling, but otherwise unharmed. They both looked green, as if they'd just gotten off their first roller coaster ride, yet they were grinning from ear to ear.

"Congratulations. You survived your first flight," Skipper said to them, his flipper gently pinching Mort's outer ear. "Well done, tiny soldier." – The little mouse lemur jutted his chin at him with pride. – "You too, Witch Lemur."

"I'm not a –."

"Yes, yes, I know." Skipper took Seven by the shoulder, pointing at the plane behind her. "See, you don't need magic at all. You've just proven that even when handling an issue as challenging as the one you just dealt with, you can do perfectly well without it."

The lemur girl's face lit up with a huge beam. "Yes! That was incredible, absolutely incredible! It was the most exciting thing I've ever done, both in this life and in my previous one. And despite the danger it was so much fun, too! I want to do it again – let's fly again as soon as we get the chance, shall we, Mort?"

"Um… yeah, why not." His face still slightly green, the little mouse lemur didn't seem half as excited about it as she was, yet he nodded valiantly and even managed a smile.

Seven then handed Private back his aviator goggles. "Sorry we took your plane without asking," she said a bit sheepishly.

– And Private, being the kind and forgiving penguin he was, didn't mind at all. "It's alright. I'm just glad you guys are okay," he answered, smiling happily. "Now let's take our planes to the Cove of Wonders and then go visit Julien all together, shall we?"

* * *

A little later everyone had reassembled in Dr. S' cave.

Despite his severe injuries Julien was already fully conscious again, thanks to Dr. S' surgical skills and a bit of magical help from Masikura – although the snake doctor at first expressed some distrust about magic being involved 'when practicing medicine out of a cave'. There was a lot going on in the ward; lemurs went in and out, coming to visit their king and hear from him with their own ears that Clemson's tyranny was definitely over now for all times. Clover had her paws full keeping them from getting too close to Julien, who still had to lie in bed with an IV attached to his arm.

Maurice and the penguins were gathered around him while Karl and Chauncey had withdrawn into a corner of the room, occasionally joining in the conversation here and there, but mostly just listening. Timo busied himself warding off Xixi, who continually pressed to be granted an interview with the king. Mort and Seven kept excitedly chattering about their first flight, with open palms and elbows flying in all directions to describe arcs and turns.

"I thought there was nothing better than being a witch – but there is!" Seven announced to everyone around, "Learning how to fly a plane is much more exciting than learning magic. Tail chasing, dog fighting, tactics and aerobatics – this is so much fun!"

Clover grinned. "I totally agree."

"– I'm done with magic, really. I've been given a new life, and in this life I certainly don't want to be a witch again. I want to be a pilot!"

"Oh yeah? I could instruct you to work for the aerial service of the Ringtail Guard," Clover offered her, "We can start tomorrow if you want to."

Seven's eyes went wide with surprise, then with joy. "You… you'd really do that?!"

Clover gave the girl a wink and a smile. "If you dare."

"Absolutely! I'd love to!" She bounced a little on her toes, too full of energy to remain still at the exciting prospect of being allowed to fly again soon, and then turned to the fanaloka in the corner. "What about you, Karl? What are you going to do now?"

Everyone turned their heads to hear his answer.

"Well, I'm _not_ done with magic," he replied, stepping forward, "On the contrary – after we dueled, I felt like I'd just really gotten into it again!"

"Dear Frank, does this mean we're going to have to deal with more magical conquest plans in the future?" Maurice moaned.

But the fanaloka shook his head decisively. "No, it doesn't. I think we've all certainly had enough of that."

"That doesn't sound quite like you, Karl," Julien said to him with a little smirk, "You've been so keen on conquering Madagascar ever since!"

Karl and Chauncey exchanged a look. Then Karl took a deep breath before he declared, "Well, when I was up there fighting with you, I realized something. You know, I had been jealous of Clemson before because he'd managed to do what I've been trying to do for so long… conquering this island. But after I had been watching him rule for a while, I realized that swapping places with him wasn't what I truly wished for. Not even in my most twisted dreams of power and glory have I ever harbored the wish to do any of the horrible things he did to the people here, and I certainly wouldn't have ruled Madagascar the way he did… But now I don't even want to rule at all anymore. I simply can't imagine turning into someone who even vaguely resembles him in any way."

The ward was still full of animals, but everyone was silent now, listening to him attentively. They all knew about his previous attempts to overthrow King Julien and take over the island, and hearing this from him surprised them very much.

– "Sure, I've always wished to be taken more seriously by those around me, and I still do. But I don't necessarily have to become king for that. I always thought that the conquest of Madagascar was my ultimate goal, my greatest achievement yet to be reached. But when I was up there with you battling Clemson and his army, I realized that there _is_ something more important, something more worth fighting for than the conquest of Madagascar – it's _saving_ Madagascar and as many of the souls that live here as possible."

He spoke these last words in an almost solemn tone. "You know, there are some things worth fighting for… there are even some things worth dying for. But I realized that I must fight for something more than myself, something like a greater ideal. If I devote myself to something more, to a task greater than myself, then I will perhaps finally manage to become the legend I want to be. Yes, I still want to see that day when a hush falls over Madagascar once my name is spoken – but I want it to be a hush of admiration, not one of terror."

The animals around him eyed him with appreciation, their faces filled with wonder and curiosity.

" – In short, that means I'd very much like to resume my studies as a witch doctor, because that's what participates in the process of saving other lives in the most direct way," he finished, "But of course after everything that's happened, I don't know if Masikura –."

He fell silent when the chameleon lady disappeared from the headboard of Julien's bed and then reappeared right in front of him and hugged him tightly.

"Welcome back on campus, my student."

A loud joyous murmur rose from the crowd around them, and with a warm, honest smile Karl stepped over to the lemur king's bedside.

"I, uh…" He looked like he wanted to say more but had some trouble finding the right words. "Well, Julien, we've known each other for a long time. Our relationship has always been a difficult one, and not all the things we've experienced together were pleasant, of course. But I think that this morning we put up a really good fight together, and I have to say I wouldn't mind doing it again. So, do you… well, think we can put the rest behind us, and just, I don't know…"

"…Be friends?" Julien finished for him with a smile, reaching out his paw in reconciliation. Karl shook it without hesitating, and the others broke into applause as the two most famous citizens of Madagascar officially declared their long-running dispute finally resolved.

* * *

"Congratulations, Ringtail. You didn't only get rid of one foe – you even managed to turn another one into your ally!" Skipper later said to Julien when they were walking over to the Cove of Wonders to rejoin Kowalski and Timo, who had gone there a while ago in order to service the penguins' planes.

Julien nodded. "Yeah, I never had any hopes of ever making peace with Clemson, but Karl and I go back a long way. When Maurice, Mort, and I left Madagascar for the first time and came to your zoo, I actually regretted that back then we parted enemies. Good thing our feud is finally settled now."

The lemur king was limping on a pair of wooden crutches beside Skipper; he'd insisted on coming along with them, so Masikura had had to perform a few more healing spells in order to give him enough strength to stand and walk. Maurice, Clover, and the three penguins were by his side all the time, proceeding very slowly so he could keep up with them.

When they finally arrived at the Cove, Timo and Kowalski had already finished their work. Since Mort and Seven hadn't been as heavily involved in the previous battle as the rest of them, the _Maverick IV_ was the only plane in the penguin team's fleet that was still airworthy. Timo had used all his imagination and scientific genius to reconstruct it into a small four-seater plane so the penguins would have at least one functioning aircraft they could travel in together.

Skipper, Kowalski, and Rico had to say goodbye to their planes; the _Maverick I_ , _II_ and _III_ were definitely too damaged to risk the long flight back to New York. The three planes had been dismantled and stowed in the Cove; Timo and Kowalski had used some of their parts to replace defective ones from the _Maverick IV_ and to install the two additional seats in the aft baggage area.

"Nice job, you two," Skipper commented, patting the gleaming steel of the hull as he waddled around the aircraft making a preflight inspection, "We might as well keep that one for international flights and get ourselves a new fleet of fighter jets."

"Well, we did what we could," Timo said with a shrug and a smile, wiping his oily paws on an equally oily rag. Kowalski nodded his agreement.

"It may not be perfect, but in any case it should take us back home safely."

"Right… Let's make a quick side trip to Bangladesh first, though. We need to help the North Wind guys out a bit. You know, Classified called before…"

"Roger that, Skipper. In that case we better load some extra fuel." – The second-in-command checked his smartphone. – "Oh, and we're lucky; the weather over the central and eastern Indian Ocean promises to be excellent at the moment…"

"Then we should use this chance and get moving!" – Skipper nodded to Rico, who hacked up four pairs of aviator goggles. – "Well, I guess that's it for this case. It's time for us to ditch this island, boys."

Julien shook his head fiercely. "But… but you guys just saved Madagascar and helped restore order and freedom for my people! You're the heroes of the day! We must honor you by giving you a great party – so this time you'll have to celebrate with us!" he insisted, remembering their previous goodbye.

A slight frown creased the penguin leader's brow while a smile curved his beak. "A party? You're not even healthy yet!"

"Then you must stay here until I am."

"Ah, no way." Skipper reached out to shake Julien's paw and then pulled him into an embrace. "Come on, you know us, Ringtail. The adventure calls, the future awaits – there are more villains like Clemson and there are others in trouble just as we're talking, so we've got no time to lose to save animalhood once more." Julien smiled and patted Skipper's back as they hugged. Then Skipper pulled back and looked the lemur king in the eyes with great earnestness. "Listen, I'm sorry that this unnecessary tyranny has taken such a heavy toll on you and your people. But this could have ended much worse."

Julien furrowed his brow a little. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

"I think you can count yourself very lucky to have gotten away with your life this time. Not all of your enemies will end up turning into your friends or finishing themselves off after all. So take care, okay?"

"Yes, sure." Julien nodded slowly, seriously. "Thank you, Skipper."

The penguin leader patted his shoulder one last time before he waddled back to his men. Kowalski was just about to hand him his goggles when someone called him from behind.

"Skipper?" – He turned around to see Clover smiling at him. – "Thanks for the dance."

Leaning forward, the lemur girl gave him a quick peck on the cheek. That surprised him so much he blushed deeply under his feathers and for a moment didn't know what to say.

"M-my pleasure," he finally stammered but pulled himself together before his brothers could start giggling behind his back. "I, uh… very much hope we'll get the chance to serve together again, Clover, and I wish you the very best of success in your military career."

"I wish that for you as well, Skipper, and I'd serve with you again any day." She saluted him, and he returned the salute with a warm smile before she turned back to Julien, Maurice, and Timo, who had watched their little exchange with wide smiles on their faces.

"Where are Mort and Seven, by the way?" Private asked.

Timo pointed with his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the coffee fields. "Back at Karl's lair. He's teaching them how to pilot an airship…"

"Oh. Well, then… Give them all our best wishes, okay?"

"Of course."

While the rest of the little group were shaking paws and flippers now, too, Maurice came up to the penguin leader and asked him, "Hey, if something like this happens here again – you know, I don't know who or what it could be, but just in case there's more trouble… will you come back?"

Skipper gave him a wink and a flippers-up. "You can always count on us."

And the lemurs knew that they could.

So when the four brothers boarded their plane, they knew that the fact that they were living thousands of miles away from their island didn't change a thing.

Because no matter what kind of dangers they'd have yet to face – from the natural, the supernatural, or perhaps even from aliens – the penguins would always be there for them to save the day.

When everyone was settled and strapped in for takeoff, Skipper called for Timo to move the blocks from under the wheels before he closed the Plexiglas canopy over their heads. Then he started the engines and taxied out of the Cove. As soon as they had reached the beach, he locked the brakes and gave the engines full throttle – the plane shot ahead, lifting its wings from the ground with ease. Behind him the three penguins were glued to the rear window, wildly waving goodbye to Julien, Maurice, Clover, and Timo.

They were climbing fast, beneath them the pristine beauty of the coastline, smooth like a white satin sheet, and the undulating blue of the ocean. Their hearts were full of sadness as they watched the island disappear from view, but the thought that the lemurs and all the other animals could continue living in peace now enlivened them and filled them with joy.

Skipper threw the plane into a hard right bank, and all together the penguins took one last look down on Madagascar and on their friends and kept smiling and waving until they were out of sight.

XXX

* * *

 _*curtain falls*_

 _Here ends my version of the story of Julien and Clemson._

 _There are an incredible number of_ _ _people I need to thank__ _for helping me get to this point!_

 _Firstly, visual artists: If anyone here knows Umineko No Naku Koro Ni, I hope they had a ball reading this story.^^ My best wishes to the makers, fans, and especially to all you hardworking translators out there. Also huge thanks to the makers of Top Gun for 'help' with all the flight scenes.  
Secondly, musicians: I'd like to thank Akiko Shikata for... well, the whole thing^^; the mighty Evanescence for countless moments of inspiration; W.A.S.P. for Clemson's prayer in Ch. 18; Amberian Dawn for the coronation ceremony; Hồ Quỳnh Hương and Mỹ Tâm for impressions of the Franksgiving scenes (sweet greets to Vietnam!); and many others._

 _...And my deepest gratitude of course goes to my readers. Thank you so much for sharing this journey with me. I smiled every time you expressed your thoughts and feelings for the characters and turns of the story; it made me feel like I really managed to express what I intended to and I can't thank you enough for taking the time to put your thoughts into reviews. No words can ever express my appreciation for your support. I'm really so happy to have gotten the chance to meet you people and I will miss you dearly because this was very likely my last story for the Penguins of Madagascar/All Hail King Julien. I honestly love the shows to death and I always will, but there's a couple of other fandoms I'd also like to invest more time into. So this is goodbye! *takes a deep bow and gives all readers a huge virtual hug*  
When writing fanfiction I always aspire to stay as close to the characters as possible while at the same time trying to make full use of the vastness a universe offers. I sincerely hope I managed to come up with a worthy final tribute to the beautiful Madagascar universe. Please everyone keep writing, reading, reviewing, enjoying… anything to keep it alive. Our furred friends and feathered heroes deserve it so much.  
I will never forget the time in this amazing fandom. Thank you so much for everything. _

_My best love and all my blessings to all you writers and readers, artists, novelists, and fellow fans out there!_

 _\- Nemo_

 _PS. On my Deviantart page (where I'm also NemoNemini) you can now find a picture of Clemson and Mea in the Alchimus Hospital (from the previous story), which is sadly the only picture I ever got done for this fandom. Also if you have an account, we can be friends/watchers if you like. :)_


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